When I was setting up my raised bed, I mixed Kellogg brand raised bed soil with black kow compost and some top soil. Around 7 months later, my raised beds’ soil is so dense that I can’t even get radishes to grow properly 🥲 please help—how do I loosen up the soil? I’d love to grow carrots and other root veggies but they just don’t develop. Pictured are this year’s carrots…
by SZLO
22 Comments
Manure (or manure compost) can raise the alkalinity of the soil, which can affect carrots. I’d be very surprised if the soil is too compacted — I’ve had carrots grow in pretty dense native soil with no issues other than rocks causing them to split.
If it’s any consolation, there are good recipes for carrot greens! I use them for chimichuri or pesto. So not all is lost!
For my raised beds, I used perlite to help with soil density. I know other folks have used vermiculite or course sand. I also have some slowly decomposing twigs in my beds (from my compost/a nearby tree). You basically want bigger pieces of soil/rock/organic matter to help create air pockets in the soil, and prevent it from getting too compacted or going anaerobic.
I also used compost from my own pile, so there’s a lot of earthworms and other soil critters to help aerate the soil. We did not have any worms here when we moved in, because the previous residents sprayed for mosquitoes all the time. Or perhaps you’re dealing with some of those invasive jumping worms crowding out other species?
Basically, a lack of beneficial insects (for whatever reason) could be impacting soil aeration as well.
How is the drainage for the soil below your raised bed? Excess moisture (or not enough moisture) could also impact the soil density.
ETA: if you’re in the US, you could look for a local cooperative extension office or Master Gardener group. The ones near me have tables at local libraries/farmers markets to answer plant related questions. You could bring a sample of your raised bed soil and ask for advice. If you really want to be scientific about it, you could also see if they offer soil testing kits. I saved my camellias from death this year in the nick of time once I figured out their soil was the wrong pH.
Add perlite to around 15-20% total volume and organic matter. Have stuff growing in it all the time and have roots in it all the time. When you harvest do not remove roots from the soil.
Vermiculite and play sand.
Kellogg’s raised bed mix is a tricky product. You have to COMPLETELY saturate the mix when you put it down. [See their FAQs](https://kellogggarden.com/blog/soil/raised-bed-garden-soil-potting-mix/). It’s very easy to wind up with something like a hardpan under the first few inches if you don’t saturate it, or (worse) a deeper layer that is hot-composting in place due to the high wood content in the mix that you’ve amended with nitrogen-richer Black Kow. When people complain about Kellogg’s killing their transplants, that composting effect is usually what is happening.
It’s not a bad product per se, but they really need to be screaming the instructions for use a lot more clearly on the packaging.
I started a garden in the high desert where the soil hadn’t grown anything at all ever before. But in year 3 I was able to grow nice straight carrots and other root vegetables. Here’s how.
I dug out the larger stones and added manure or compost in the first year. Then I planted, and mulched around the beds with any carbonaceous natural materials I could find, mostly wood chips the first year, transitioning to garden waste and weeds cut before they go to seed, in subsequent years. I kept the mulch on continuously, pulling it aside to sow seeds such as carrots, and pulling it back around the plants as the plants got big enough.
In my experience, the soil in the beds where mulch was kept continuously grew softer, fluffier, and darker. Anywhere I cleared the mulch away and left it without mulch for a month or more, the soil started to revert to pale, dense, compacted. This was actually regardless of how much compost I’d mixed into the soil initially.
Mulch is your great friend for soil texture. Pull it aside when sowing seeds such as carrots, which have to be direct sown. Pull it back into place as soon as possible. Leave mulch on the soil over the winter or dormant season.
so a few things
kelogg soil is awful, i made the mistake of buying it , and everytime its mentioned people usually all agree, its bad
black kow compost is pretty disgusting in my opinion, but everyone has their own preferred medium
so these issues with density, are not the issue you are having
radishes and carrots are root crops, and require only phosphorous and potassium to grow, looking at your carrots they were growing on top, due to plenty of nitrogen, and not on bottom
Good sources of phosphorous and potassium = mkp
Good sources of potassium are sulfate of potash
both can be applied to soil at time of planting, sprinkled on top and watered in, or dissolved in water and applied to plants that way.
Hope your next grow goes better , if you feed your root crops they will be huge and taste like candy
Add sand
Although I have had success in raised beds, I grow mine in containers. Specifically root pouches. It’s almost effortless production.
Edit: and I use Mel’s mix for my containers
I had that same thing happen. The combination of Kellogg raised bed soil and Black Kow turned into nearly-solid bricks. Nothing would grow in it. It formed a thick crust. Water would run off the top of the containers. I would cultivate it deeply with a spading fork, it would look better for a short time, then the hard layering would happen again.
I had filled deep planter boxes with it for flowers and some 10-gallon fabric grow bags for small onions and radishes. It was a total fail. Eventually, I dumped them out and amended them very heavily with peat moss and perlite. This was several years ago and I didn’t check pH, so honestly cannot say if that was a factor. But the texture was horrible. It was just unuseable.
Subsequently, I’ve used plenty of Black Kow and had no problem with it. But I have made a point of avoiding Kellogg like the plague. If you search the internet, you will find lots of other complaints about this product.
When I grew carrots that looked like that, I ultimately came to the conclusion I’d amended with too much nitrogen (thus the thriving tops).
But, don’t take my word without confirmation from others… I’m pretty novice and come here to learn.
I made the mistake of getting topsoil for our raised beds and our local soil is very clay so I had a similar problem my first year. Last fall, I worked in compost (I used bagged espoma brand) with pitchfork tines to aerate it a bit. It’s been so much better come spring. I also planted daikon radish and that helps break up the soil too if it’s too compacted.
Now looking at your carrots, I would’ve guessed they either didn’t get enough sunlight or were planted too close together without being thinned. I made the mistake of planting carrots alongside my brassicas that fall and they did not develop much at all because the broccoli and cauliflower leaves shaded them out.
This season I grew carrots in a growbag and had more consistent results!
Peat moss. I use a lot of peat moss mixed in with regular native soil to make it fluffy for onions, carrots and garlic.
How long did you leave them in the soil since planting?
I scrolled a bit and didn’t see anyone mention it, but unless you’re starting with a completely inorganic mix, you probably don’t want to be fertilizing carrots. I discovered that trying to figure out why my carrots in a raised bed were all tops and very little root. Apparently, they don’t store as much energy if they are in a rich mix, and instead grow a lot of greens: [https://www.housedigest.com/1857199/carrot-fertilizer-avoid-plant/](https://www.housedigest.com/1857199/carrot-fertilizer-avoid-plant/)
Dig with a fork this year do not walk on that. Add leaves
I would guess your beds maybe a little too fertile for carrots, or simply just need to let them mature a little longer.
Work in a a bunch of coconut coir and maybe perlite to loosen up the soil and keep it fluffy. Most of the rest of your garden plants will appreciate it too.
Surprised they didnt rot instead. Kelloggs soil is basically wood. It composts, rots roots, steals fertilizer, and compacts. Just make your own mix. Peat moss and perlite, 50/50. I mix in organic or slow release fertilizer.
Add sand
Add sand. I did that along with humus, and had a bumper crop.