More compost honestly. With such a low-height bed you’ll want to fill the bed all the way to the top to give more soil for roots.
Once you’ve done that you could use various mulch to lock in moisture, such as straw, cardboard, black landscaping fabric, or clear landscaping fabric ( I prefer cardboard as it encourages worms or black landscaping fabric as it reduces weeds and can be reused).
Numerous_Worker_1941
Topsoil?
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AliciaXTC
Lots of actual top soil and mixed in heavily.
Compost is an amendment, not soil. It will continue to decompose and compact heavily. This results in less oxygen to roots, nutrient burn out. It will be more and more hydrophobic over the season.
It always sounds great, but using pure compost is a bad long term idea.
jh937hfiu3hrhv9
How thick is the compost layer and is there dirt underneath?
Ordinary-You3936
Topsoil, then till them together, that’ll perform much better than 100% compost
ConstantRude2125
This spring will make 5 years of filling and occasional topping with nothing but mushroom compost and the occasional bit of organic fertilizer. Everything I’ve planted, veggies, flowers, and greenery, seems to thrive in it.
Enough-Initiative961
Depending on how thick that compost is and how long it has aged, I’d mix in coco and perlite, 1 to 1. So 1/3 compost, 1/3 coco coir and 1/3 perlite. Mix it together really good. Then you are ready to plant out starts or seeds. Then cover with a couple inches of straw.
If you are top dressing an existing bed and it’s just a thin compost layer, then plant away then add straw.
Some prefer pine needles or mulch or whatever, so substitute straw for your preference
Far_Designer_8321
So I did something similar my first year gardening in my new home. The potatoes I grew really told me it was just too dense, and the root growth kinda sucked. I added a decent amount of peat moss to each bed to loosen up the soil and it made a huge difference the next year.
Gardener_Mike
Get a bunch of raised bed or garden soil to mix in. Or you can get the compost tested to make sure it’s okay to grow in.
TheRamazon
Crimson clover! Use it as a living green mulch under and around your veg. It keeps weeds down, keeps soil moist, fixes nitrogen and provides biomass for your soil, attracts pollinators. I can’t speak highly enough for it in your garden as a mulch alternative!
12 Comments
More compost honestly. With such a low-height bed you’ll want to fill the bed all the way to the top to give more soil for roots.
Once you’ve done that you could use various mulch to lock in moisture, such as straw, cardboard, black landscaping fabric, or clear landscaping fabric ( I prefer cardboard as it encourages worms or black landscaping fabric as it reduces weeds and can be reused).
Topsoil?
[removed]
Lots of actual top soil and mixed in heavily.
Compost is an amendment, not soil. It will continue to decompose and compact heavily. This results in less oxygen to roots, nutrient burn out. It will be more and more hydrophobic over the season.
It always sounds great, but using pure compost is a bad long term idea.
How thick is the compost layer and is there dirt underneath?
Topsoil, then till them together, that’ll perform much better than 100% compost
This spring will make 5 years of filling and occasional topping with nothing but mushroom compost and the occasional bit of organic fertilizer. Everything I’ve planted, veggies, flowers, and greenery, seems to thrive in it.
Depending on how thick that compost is and how long it has aged, I’d mix in coco and perlite, 1 to 1. So 1/3 compost, 1/3 coco coir and 1/3 perlite. Mix it together really good. Then you are ready to plant out starts or seeds. Then cover with a couple inches of straw.
If you are top dressing an existing bed and it’s just a thin compost layer, then plant away then add straw.
Some prefer pine needles or mulch or whatever, so substitute straw for your preference
So I did something similar my first year gardening in my new home. The potatoes I grew really told me it was just too dense, and the root growth kinda sucked. I added a decent amount of peat moss to each bed to loosen up the soil and it made a huge difference the next year.
Get a bunch of raised bed or garden soil to mix in. Or you can get the compost tested to make sure it’s okay to grow in.
Crimson clover! Use it as a living green mulch under and around your veg. It keeps weeds down, keeps soil moist, fixes nitrogen and provides biomass for your soil, attracts pollinators. I can’t speak highly enough for it in your garden as a mulch alternative!
Some slabs of flagstone down the middle