Hi,
Newbie here!!
As I have very heavy clay soil, and since digging is very difficult due to disability, I have built some raised beds instead.
Silly question - what do I fill it with? I know that it will cost a fortune to buy grow bags and use those; I am not going to use the soil out of my garden, even though some say clay is good because of it holding moisture and nutrients; I did see some 'so-called screend' top soil at a builders merchants, which had what can only be described as boulders and not stones in it. If I was to buy that (which looking at the price I wont be), would I need to sieve it first to get stones out, or do stones help the structure of soil?
Apologies for asking soooo many questions at once!!
if you can get your hands on any, then well rotted 'hoss muck' would be good to apply
to any beds not growing root crops next year.
there's a garden centre by me with a huge mound of the stuff, bag it up yourself at 50p a bag
i'm sure there must be similar where you live ?
over a few years of home grown compost your soil will be much better.
That's the cheapest option for me.
good luck, and find yourself a young family member to help you dig !!
To have a name like black country steve and to talk about hoss muck, where in God's back yard are you mate? (Ex Wolverhampton / Tipton chap here!)
Or more specifically, where's that garden centre that's selling it for 50p a bag??
sand, spent mushroom compost, grass trimmings, anything green or brown. let it all rot down. Old grow bags, used compost from pots.......
You can get compost from recycled green waste cheaply in some areas.
I think the point that's being missed here is that if someone is too disabled to dig much they'll have problems with "load it yourself" cheap compost/manure....
chrisc
Hiya, mark ;D
As someone with disabilities, I know what you mean, when we made our raised beds, we covered the floor with thick cardboard, then whatever we could lay our hands on, well rotted muck came into it, we did have a friend who helped to fill them, now they are 18" so I can sit on a board between them to weed, plant etc. Hope you can find a way to do it, spent mushroom compost is good but not for spuds :)
I'm obsessed with straw bales at the moment - if you can get someone to sling one into a raised bed before you add compost/top soil/whatever, and undo it and spread it around, it will rot down over the winter and add bulk to your beds. My bales cost £3 each from a farm, delivered, and garden centres have been reported as charging similar prices.
Are you able to collect leaves, and chuck them in too, as they are not heavy?
One tip to help you is ..you don't have to fill your beds at once..give your beds little bit of "good stuff" and grow on it..and as you require more "filling" you can do little by little. Eventually to soil level start to catch up with the bed edges.
Over the growing season you can use small amounts of grass clippings, compost etc. as mulch, all that will count. Your raised beds may not look quite ideal first year or two but soon you'll be shoveling the over flow out ;)