New raised bed

nicolej

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Hi there,

Starting on my new raised bed tomorrow and have been researching online about filling them. I love marks way of wood, off cuts at the bottom but i dont have the right sources to do this. I plan on using some of my own compost, a bit of mushroom compost and some cheap soil for the bottom. Is there a better way to go? Maybe a bag of pine back or somthing on the bottom before the soil? Thanks
 

nicolej

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Yup, the cardboard is already ready to go down, just wondered if its worth putting down pine bark/woodchip for aeration. was gonna put a bit of sugar cane i have down too. i was gonna get a couple bags of richgro soil and then put some god organic material ontop of that in the form of home compost and organic matter on top? just worried about putting TOO much organic matter and the plants will burn in it. also considered some peatmoss in it as well
 

AndrewB

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Sorry for the late reply, it's been a busy day. I mix it through in a new bed. The top 30cm or so are the most important, that's where the majority of the roots will be for most plants. For the rest of it, you just want to balance drainage & water holding.

I've tried wood chips as a base layer in pots before & the only difference I noticed was that ants decided it would make a fantastic home.

Vermiculite or Perlite are good options if you are looking to improve aeration & drainage.
 

nicolej

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Well i have a 5l bag of vermiculite that hasnt been used so maybe ill chuck that in along with some of the richgro soil bags as well. Then my homemade compost on top. Just worried about the aeration part!
 

nicolej

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I brought one of those 20 dollar beds from bunnings 120x90x30, how much do u reckon id need from the rockyard?
 

AndrewB

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They don't take much, 1 scoop (1/4 mtr) would be heaps.

For those little beds, bags aren't too bad though, as you don't have the wasted space to fill that the tall ones create. I have 2 of those beds & used a big coco coir block & around 4 bags of compost per bed from memory.
 

nicolej

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And you had a good harvest etc from your veg in that mix? Thank you so much for your help. Helps ALOT to have a local!
 

AndrewB

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Yes, I've grown a load of spinach & silverbeet in them. I just moved one about a month ago, everything was cut back to the ground, then replanted & this is it today:
bunnings bed.jpg
 

GKW

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+1 on those $20.00 jobs from Bunnings. I've got two and they have worked fine....also with the knowledge that one day those plastic corners will weather and break and I'll either chuck it or break out the star pickets and fencing wire to hold it together but I digress.

I've planted corn in one. I've got garlic growing in another and a combo of spuds, beans and before they died off, snow peas all living in one of these raised beds. I've got my $20.00 out of it...
 

Shellhomed

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I have 5 of them...mine are from Aldi, and we've grown so much food in them. Over this winter we had snow peas and shelling peas, silverbeat, spinach, lettuce, carrots, beetroot, leeks, spring onions, celery...and garlic. I feed between 6 and 8 people daily and the only foods we've had to buy out of this is beetroot and carrots, and a little spinach. Our beets didn't grow so well, and I didn't plant enough carrots or spinach. But we've had plenty of food.
 

JoshW

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Bit late but I filled the bottom half of my raised beds with 'bush mulch' from the rockyard. No sign of any settling yet and was a lot cheaper than sourcing logs here atm.
 

nicolej

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Bush mulch? never heard of that one! I ended up trying ta coco coir/peat block, some of my own compost and just some richgro organic compost from bunnings so see how we go. so far so good!
thank you to all for the suggestions, has been very helpful and great advice!
 
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