Raised Vegetable Garden Soil Layers
You can also add wood ash straw peat moss and sawdust.
Raised vegetable garden soil layers. When it comes to actually filling the raised garden beds sometimes the ideal gives way to other pressures. Add 2 inches of compost or moist garden soil on top of the newspaper. Repeat the layers until the bed is 18 to 24 inches deep. This layer will break down over time as the busy earth worms move it.
Dampen the soil or grass which should be mowed before hand that will be under the bed with a garden hose or sprinkler. Luckily a raised bed can quickly overcome any poor soil condition by allowing you to create the perfect soil mixture above ground. However tough native soil conditions such as heavy clay too much sand rock or poor nutritional content can cause many gardeners to give up before ever reaching harvest time. Ideally i would build the raised bed frame then fill it with varied layers of nitrogen rich and carbon rich.
With a raised bed your vegetables benefit from a longer growing season because the soil warms up earlier than soil in the ground and you benefit from less bending over to tend to your garden. Raised beds range from a few inches to a few feet high. Add one 2 inch layer each of mulch or dried leaves manure grass clippings and compost. Sprinkle on activators such as blood and bone and add trace elements through rock dusts.