‘Sustaining the Soul of Organics’ - Making a Sustainable Garden Bed

Yup the garden seed catalogs are coming already. Do you really want to open them up and start planning? Or would you rather enjoy some snow? Well that’s how I feel about my own garden – it has to wait until I enjoy a little bit of the off-season, snow and have Rippling Waters crop plan finished. But here are some suggestions for making a garden bed.

We get a lot of questions about how to make raised beds, since most of our customers have backyard lawns that they want to turn some of the space into a garden. Also I find that most people have extremely busy lives and don’t have much time to devote to their garden, especially when it comes to weeding. So here is a great way to help – you’ll just have to invest most of your time in the beginning to create a raised bed.

The method I like best is using resources you already have around your home. I use a layering technique of organic matter often called Lasagne Gardening (you can buy books about it from us). In essence you are creating a compost pile. Although making the bed in the fall from saved organic matter will give it more time to breakdown, a spring raised bed works just fine.

Start by laying out your raised bed area with 4-5 layers of newspaper or flattened cardboard boxes or something similar to these. Water it to hold it down. Then put your bed frame on top if you’re going to use one. Simple scrap boards can be used for sides. Next put down a layer of larger pieces of cut shrubs if you have any. If you have any sand add about an inch of that next. Then start layering other organic materials you have compiled like unfinished compost, leaves, hay, grass clippings, or animal shavings/manure. Layer the greener, nitrogen-rich and animal residue materials between the carbon brown materials like leaves and hay. Your carbon layers should be thicker than the nitrogen layers, as high as 10-1. Other nitrogen rich amendments you can buy are blood meal, fish meal, soy meal, cottonseed meal, general fertilizer and greensand. Adding bonemeal is also great because plant roots love the calcium and your soil organisms love the silica found in bonemeal. WATER thoroughly each layer. Finally finish layering the bed with compost (nitrogen layer), peat moss or some chopped leaves or hay, and finally topsoil.

You want to top off your raised bed with a nice thick 4-6” layer of mulch. I almost always use mulch hay for this because it is porous for water seepage, decomposes well, and isn’t too acidic.

Now you have a weed-free, highly fertile garden bed! Soon your layers will decompose until you have a wonderfully dark colored, earthworm filled soil. Then to replace the volume of your bed as it decomposes, each year add a little more compost and yard waste or leaves that you now know to stockpile.

If you want to make a quicker bed and don’t have the compost materials stockpiled, we have all the ingredients for sale to make the Square Foot Garden bed mix as well as the amendments listed above. Come on out to the farm and stock up – we’ll help you make the best garden bed ever!