Amending Raised Bed Soil

 This is the time of year when I do some work on my raised beds.  No matter what soil you start with, beds will need to be amended because of the intensive nutrient requirements year after year.  If you have an open, old fashioned, in the ground garden you can add virtually unlimited quantities of compost, leaves or aged manure and till it into the soil.  

If you have an enclosed bed there is a limit to the amount of material you can add before the material and water will begin to spill out.  Over time you will lose soil volume through compaction and removal of old plants but this is a slow process. For this reason I start with more nutrient dense additives such as slow release fertilizers, blood meal, bone meal etc.

I am also a firm believer in not turning my soil as you would if you were tilling in large amounts of compost.  I'm not a strict "lasagna" gardener where you layer new material on top of old and never disturb the soil, but I avoid mixing up the layers of microorganisms and destroying earthworm tunnels.  One of the advantages of raised beds is that you do not walk on and compact the soil, but this does not mean the soil does not compact over time.  You do not want your water running off to one side of the bed.  You want it to percolate right down through.  So your soil structure still needs to be loose enough to do that.  And root systems and earth worm tunnels just aren't enough.

The answer to compacted soil is a fork of some kind.  I've done this with a four tine digging fork, but the broad fork is much much quicker.  I go though the bed, driving the fork in about six inches deep and pulling it back to crack the soil base.  How deep I go depends on how compacted I'm finding the soil.  This doesn't have to be done every year.  Every two or three years should be enough.

You end up with a bed full of holes which are perfect for integrating soil amendments into the soil.

  I mix up a batch of whatever materials I think this bed needs based on its most recent performance and the crop that is going into it next.  In this case I am adding worm castings and Garden-tone.  I am planting butter beans in this bed.  I know everyone always says that beans and peas like poor soil.  Well, tolerating poor soil is not the same as preferring poor soil.  I've had great results in the past planting bush beans into worm castings and a balanced fertilizer.  The only crop I have never fertilized is peas.

Using a scoop I spread the mixture over the bed and level everything with a bow rake.  If there is room in the bed, I finish off with a layer of my own compost.  And the bed is ready to plant.