There is an epidemic of gardeners filling raised garden beds with mixes designed for container gardening. This is a big mistake and can have harmful long-term effects on your raised bed garden. It is also a big waste of money, because potting soil blends are much more expensive than proper raised garden bed soil. I will teach you how to fill a raised garden bed correctly, cheap and easy, and why you must avoid making raised garden bed mixes out of this common ingredient. This ingredient destroys raised garden beds. Stop using it now!
How To Make Raised Bed Soil: https://youtu.be/c-BRQwfVn8Y?si=obMfrK5XRjXAWG9q
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
0:00 Potting Soil VS Raised Bed Garden Soil
2:22 Why Potting Soil Is BAD For Raised Beds
4:14 How To Make Raised Garden Bed Soil
7:13 The Cheapest Way To Fill Garden Beds
8:31 How Raised Bed Soil Should Look
11:26 How To Fix Raised Garden Bed Soil
13:42 Adventures With Dale
If you have questions about how to garden in raised beds and avoiding common raised bed gardening mistakes, growing fruit trees or want to know about the things I grow in my raised bed vegetable garden and edible landscaping food forest, are looking for more gardening tips and tricks and garden hacks, have questions about vegetable gardening and organic gardening in general, or want to share some DIY and “how to” garden tips and gardening hacks of your own, please ask in the Comments below!
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#gardening #garden #raisedbedgarden #vegetablegardening #raisedbedgardening
43 Comments
If this video was helpful, please LIKE it and share it with your family and friends! Thanks for watching 🙂TIMESTAMPS for convenience:
0:00 Potting Soil VS Raised Bed Garden Soil
2:22 Why Potting Soil Is BAD For Raised Beds
4:14 How To Make Raised Garden Bed Soil
7:13 The Cheapest Way To Fill Garden Beds
8:31 How Raised Bed Soil Should Look
11:26 How To Fix Raised Garden Bed Soil
13:42 Adventures With Dale
Good stuff thank you for your channel helping an old man in his garden I got to raise bed doing good getting ready to retire your channel hugs me out a lot thank you
Top soil is unregulated in Canada. It is garbage. I use triple mix – bagged, mostly because some companies are not as good as others.
[I understand that U.S does not do triple mix. It is a mix of top soil/compost/peat] I then add perlite and sheep manure. Yearly I try and amend with sheep manure. I add perlite as needed. Seems to all wotk.
So yes, I do get some top soil but it seems to be a better grade, then if you buy it on its own.
I have been doing thos for about 18 yrs. Soil is fine but it does need amendments every year.
The raised beds I built last year I just filled with rabbit litter from the spring clean-out. I was going to layer it with clay, but there was so much litter and nowhere else to put it! I added a thin layer of peat to the top, and the growth was insane! I don't worry too much about drainage in my raised beds as drought is more of an issue for us. We shall see how these beds age 😉
Planting directly into the clay, however, is a different story… When we get rain, we get A LOT of it! I have to make sure that water cannot stand in the places I plant, while also over-planting so canopies are dense enough to prevent moisture loss during the extended dry periods.
Good stuff here. Do you have a video on root pruning and replacing the potting mix for fig trees in containers? Mine is on year 3 with only some added compost and potting mix added to top it off
Dumbass!
All soil degrades over time!
And NO! Organic matter DOES NOT decay to “silt.”
Silt is a granular sediment, larger than clay but smaller than sand. It is NOT organic.
Transcend the bullshit!
Instead of shoveling, I use my little greenworks electric tiller. So ooo easy
How do you have straw for mulch? Where do you keep it until it’s safe to use, seeds won’t sprout and raised beds full of grass, lol??
Better off not using potting mix in raised beds or containers. Just use dirt, compost and sand.
Beginner gardener here – You caught me days before adding several bags of potting mix into my 2 brand new raised beds. I also have some bags of topsoil and compost, so I'll look at the topsoil bags and maybe add in the play sand as well. I do have a bunch of containers to fill as well, so the potting mix will not go to waste.
In your premium potting mix video from a 2 years back, you created a mix that was 3 part peat, 3 part compost, 1 part perlite. Did you switch to that new ratio for a reason?
We are in our 4th year at our new retirement home here in East Texas. We have been container gardening up until this year. I have one raised bed built and one more to go. I covered the ground with cardboard then forked the clay soil as deeply as possible and add several micronutrients to sweeten the soil. The county came along digging out the ditches and I asked if I could get a load of the dirt, they brough me 2. I sift it through a screen to clean it up and remove what I don't want in it. I fill the bed with this and one bale of peat, perlite and cow manure compost. Another dose of micronutrients and leaf compost. I mixed it together with my trusty fork and covered with a layer of shredded leaves. I've got one more bed to build before we plant and my old body is aching but I'm very happy with my efforts. Now that I saved money on soil maybe I can figure out shade clothe for my tomatoes this year.
Raised Beds are a waste of time and money. Just DON"T
Mr Dale is an absolute goodboy breed
I don't necessarily disagree, but silt is the sand/clay you talk about adding. So your container mix isn't turning to silt, it's just decomposing. Also, you need to preface this video with a disclaimer that, if your raised beds are sitting on clay, as many of us in the west have, more sand will just cause loss of moisture.
I use mostly top soil and Black Kow, I just added potting mix for raised beds but only one regular bag mix altogether. Hope that reg bag would be ok
Very good information. Thank you. Truthful and thoughtful advice. I LOVE IT
Well I faced a different problem, it became light, empty and almost sponge-like thing not a compressed stuff. I think that's even worse, because it doesn't even hold water anymore. I tend to add even some soil to my potting mix because of this.
I have just built some large raised veg growing beds and filled them with a mix of farmyard manure and soil as natural as it gets. My broad beans, purple sprouting and sprouts are already enjoying it, along with carrots.
Smart talk , Dog .. Probably the best advice on the tube. Awesome choice of content ……..
Wow. Super helpful👍👍👍
Thank you so much for this video. I could’ve sworn that you could use topsoil mixed with organic matter, but there’s so much conflicting information that I second-guess myself. I made a raised garden bed with very old concrete block, over 30 years old, and used a mix of topsoil And potting mix and it seemed to work just fine but I worried I made a mistake. Thanks again.
I love how you get straight to the point. Thank you. Love your videos.
simply you dot know how to build soils up once they are spent so continue please
You can just top dress with fresh compost and give it a mix with an augur.
3:45 I don't use potting mix, I have a raised bed that I use as a compost which I put barkmulch and kitchen scraps (mostly just coffegrounds, eggshells, bananapeels and used tealeaves) in. Then I distribute that every spring to the others making room in the first one.
6:00 Depends on your local geology. /A geologist.
I love Mel’s mix 1/3 Peat Moss/Coco Coir, 1/3 compost/manure and 1/3 vermiculite/perlite! 1970’s recipe and still working for many of us SFG.
I love that you're such a good dog Daddy makes me smile. We've got 2 babies that we just love.❤
Good advice.
Did you change rlthe ratio of your potting mix? I thought you recommended a 3 part peat / 3 part compost / 1 part perlite. I was aking because i was making this mix for my containers this season. Thanks
I started all my beds with well rotted, straw & sheep/cow manure and sand then grew squash in holes filled with John Innes compost.
The following year I grew lots of leaf crops especially spinach in spring and brassica over the winter.
Thereafter I grow in standard rotation.
I add leaf mould, worms and sand in autumn and commercial and homemade compost in spring as a top additive with additional sand and fish blood and bone to encourage fungal and bacterial growth, depending on whether I plan root, leaf or squash crop.
Fourteen years in my soil is alive and fertile.
And don't leave bare soil. Grow spinach or lambs lettuce and I let bittercress grow wild then pull out what you don't want and either eat or compost it. Then plant or sow your crops. 🏴
Do you make and use any of your own compost, or is all the soil for your beds brought in? If you use any permaculture techniques I’d love a video on that.
বছর যাবত আমার স্বামী ঋন এ আছে নাকি প
Im considering using pallets as planters in my garden..would you suggest the same type of mix for that?
Potting soil is bad to fill raised gardens. Check. Great video. I found digging up sandy soil from my neighbor's yard is the best way to fill my raised garden beds. (neighbor bangs on the front door, again).
Seems you need to add worms to your raise beds along with additional organic matter. Raised bed are just like ground gardening you wouldn’t go without adding additional organic matter every year and incorporating it into your soil so why would you not do the same in raised beds?
Oh my gosh I feel SO much better about how I filled my beds now! I mixed a lot of our native clay soil (I’m in SC) in with topsoil, raised bed mix, my own compost from chickens and scraps, and some bagged compost. I thought I messed up by adding my native soil from my land.
Yes, I am a victim of the potting soil scam over the last few years. I am slowly digging it out and replacing it. I have been lucky that the beds always produce probably because I amend the beds every year, use fish fertilizer, etc but a lot of it is compressed like concrete. I also think using oyas have allowed proper moisture to penetrate the soil. If I can just get rid of the Canadian Thistle in one bed I would be happy !
Mixing my own topsoil compost and sand. What ratio of each should I use?
Peat moss is obtained from old growth swamp and its harvest is causing environmental havoc. Non- sustainable… bad for the planet to harvest it. Use rice hull, coco-coir and straw ( all by-products of other crops) instead
I had to quit cow manure because it is high in phosphorus and my test said it was a bit high. I instead went with fish emulsion and alfalfa pellets for nitrogen. Yes sand really helps.
Great video as always! Thank you 🙂