When building raised garden beds, it is essential to use suitable soil to provide plants with the right amount of nutrients and water drainage. Homemade compost can improve soil quality, add nutrients, and make the most of household waste. Starting a raised bed garden is like setting the foundations of a house, so it is crucial to choose the right materials.
To fill raised garden beds on the cheap, consider using free wood chips, compost from your yard, or a mixture of cardboard, twigs, tree branches, and garden soil. This method can cut costs by almost a third of the price. The bottom of the bed can be filled with anything, including organic materials like wood chips, plant debris, and grass.
There are several free or cheap materials you can use to fill raised beds, such as laying down sheets of cardboard or newspaper for weed suppression and filling the structure halfway up with alternating materials. By following these tips, you can maximize the benefits of your raised bed garden and ensure your plants receive the necessary nutrients and water.
📹 How to FILL Raised Garden Beds CHEAP and EASY
Today I want to share how to fill a raised bed garden and save money. I have used this method for years in my garden and the …
Should I put plastic in the bottom of my raised garden bed?
Avoid using plastic liners on raised garden beds to prevent drainage and water overflow. Instead, use metal mesh and fabric or hardware cloth and cardboard to address weed and pest issues. If you need help with raised garden beds, The Grounds Guys offers lawn and bed maintenance services. This allows you to focus on enjoying your garden and lessens the workload. Request a free estimate today to learn more about their services.
Should I put fabric on bottom of raised garden bed?
Landscape fabric serves as a raised bed liner to prevent soil erosion and minimize nutrient loss risk. It helps maintain water-soluble nutrients from the soil, preventing water from gushing out too quickly. To make installation easier, you can buy materials separately or use bundles like the landscape fabric and heavy-duty staple bundle, which includes 3″ x 50″ weed barrier landscape fabric with 8 or 11 gauge staples. This makes building a raised bed garden more efficient and cost-effective.
What is the best thing to fill a raised garden bed with?
Raised bed gardens can be filled with compost, seed-free plant debris, kitchen scraps, grass clippings, used coffee grounds, newspaper, and weed-free straw. However, certain materials should not be included in raised beds. Garden soil is not suitable for filling raised beds as it can become dense and compact, impairing water flow and stunting root growth. Plastic sheeting is not suitable for suppressing weeds as it can become fragile and degrade over time.
Cardboard and newspaper are better choices for suppressing weeds at the base of raised beds. Rocks or gravel can create a false water table, impairing water flow. Grade the soil around the raised bed away from the garden and ensure good drainage. Treated lumber is not suitable for filling garden beds, and plant materials from allelopathic and water-resistant plants should not be used. Black walnut suppresses nearby plant growth, while cedar is naturally water-resistant. Therefore, it is best to skip branches, twigs, and logs from these tree species when creating raised bed gardens.
How do you fill a raised bed cheaply?
To fill raised garden beds on a budget, consider using free or cheap materials such as logs, large branches, smaller branches/twigs, cardboard, depleted soil, newspaper, and smaller cardboard pieces. These materials can be found online or built by individuals who have searched for the best raised garden beds. Alternatively, you can create your own raised beds if you’re interested in saving money on your project.
What do you put on the bottom of a raised garden bed?
The use of cardboard and newspaper as a lining for the bottom of raised garden beds represents a cost-effective solution for the purpose of pest and weed deterrence.
Can you fill a raised bed with just soil?
To guarantee optimal plant growth, it is imperative to maintain a balanced soil composition, abstaining from the incorporation of topsoil or compost, contingent upon the prevailing climatic conditions and the presence of heavy feeder plants that necessitate regular fertilization.
Should I line my raised garden bed with plastic?
Raised garden bed lining offers several benefits, including insulation, temperature control, soil retention, weed separation, and pest control. It also helps drive away pests like gophers and moles. The Grounds Guys, a landscape and garden experts, specialize in landscape and lawn care services for commercial and residential properties. They take pride in doing the job right the first time and guarantee your satisfaction with the Neighborly Done Right Promise™.
The Grounds Guys offers free estimates, upfront pricing, experienced and licensed experts in uniform and clean vehicles, guaranteed timely responses to questions and inquiries, top-quality materials, the latest equipment, and outstanding service. They also clean up after every job to leave no mess behind. By hiring The Grounds Guys, you can enjoy your garden and spend your weekends enjoying it, rather than working on it.
What not to fill a raised garden bed with?
Compost is not a suitable option for filling raised garden beds as it lacks essential components for optimal plant growth, such as proper soil structure, drainage, and aeration. A balanced soil blend is best, combining compost and other soil materials. The choice between mixing your own soil or buying pre-made mixes depends on factors like convenience, budget, and specific gardening needs. Mixing your own soil allows for customization but requires time and effort, while pre-made mixes offer convenience and consistency.
Organic matter like compost, well-rotted manure, and aged compost can enrich the soil, improving soil structure, fertility, and moisture retention, promoting healthy plant growth. Adjusting the amount of each amendment depends on soil test results and plant needs.
Should I put plastic inside my raised garden bed?
Avoid using plastic liners on raised garden beds to prevent drainage and water overflow. Instead, use metal mesh and fabric or hardware cloth and cardboard to address weed and pest issues. If you need help with raised garden beds, The Grounds Guys offers lawn and bed maintenance services. This allows you to focus on enjoying your garden and lessens the workload. Request a free estimate today to learn more about their services.
What should I line the sides of my raised garden bed with?
Plastic sheets or tarps are commonly used as liners in raised garden beds to provide protection and insulation. However, they may not allow proper water drainage, leading to issues like root rot. Instead, use plastic as a liner on the inner sides of the bed, but use a more permeable material for the bottom, such as landscape fabric or wire mesh.
For herb or vegetable gardens, it is important to know the specific type of plastic used and ensure it is made of food-grade materials to avoid toxins leaching into the soil or greenery. To line a garden bed, choose the perfect spot and line the bottom with your chosen material. If using mesh wire or landscape fabric, secure it with landscape or garden staples and ensure it fits against the bed’s walls. If using landscape fabric, create a tight barrier against weeds by folding the excess material upward on the inside walls.
A liner is essential for insulate the soil from extreme temperature changes and protect against other threats, such as digging pests. To prepare a raised garden bed for growing, refer to the blog post “How to Prepare a Garden Bed for Healthy Plants” for helpful tips and information.
What is the best material to line raised beds with?
Wide-mesh hardware cloth, stainless steel mesh, landscape fabric, burlap sack, or newspaper/cardboard can be used to line the bottom of raised garden beds. These materials keep weeds and burrowing animals out, but allow earthworms to pass through. Earthworms are nature’s gardeners, aerating and enriching soil for plants. Staple the cloth to the bed frame during construction and ensure it remains in place for years to come. This durable material is designed to prevent burrowing animals from affecting the bed frame’s functionality.
📹 How to Fill a Raised Bed and Save 60%+ on Soil Costs
Then, fill the remainder with a high-quality mix that you can either buy or make yourself. This method is particularly useful when …
If you want to do hügelkultur, you SHOULD put in some coarser matter like logs and twigs at the bottom since they will take a long time to compost, providing natural heat for your raised bed. Next level is plant and grass clipping, then a layer of partially composted material and manure and then garden soil mixed with fully composted matter. While the layers compost, the density will increase and you fill up your raised bed with compost/soil every year. That way a raised bed will last around six to seven years till you have to start it anew. Of course you can leave it but then you lose the advantage of earlier and more abundant growth. ETA: Please don’t use any soil that contains peat. While it’s fantastic for your garden, it comes from bogs which are decimated for peat production, resulting in the loss of a unique natural habitat. It is not considered re-newable.
I ended up spending $80 on soil ingredients (peat moss, leaf humus compost, vermiculite, and perlite) today to fill a 12′ x 5′ bed, which I anticipate will be about 12″ high. I appreciate this article very much because to purchase any more of those ingredients would almost defeat the purpose of saving money by growing my own food. Lots of us growers need to do it on a budget, so I appreciate the thought that went into this article.
Stumbled across your website this morning and wanted to say thank you! We lost out house in the city to a fire, and decided to move to the country. We have never gardened before, so my daughter and I are brand new to this. Weve just put up about 12 raised beds and started some tomatoe seedlings. They just started poking their little heads up and- i started to panic lol. Now what? How do I move them? When and how often do I water? So many questions and no one to ask. So, thanks to google, I found you and a few other amazing gardeners who are sharing their knowledge. We appreciate you so very much. ❤
Love your website and have learned so much from it. That being said, peat bogs are being destroyed by the harvesting of peat moss and take decades to restore. While it’s not the topic of the article, it becomes a silent endorsement of the devastating practice. Please create a article on the alternatives and refer to it in all such situations. We’re in the process of filling some really large raised planters and used rice hill compost. Rice hulls are the waste product from harvesting rice and used to be burned, so doubly beneficial to use them as a soil amendment.
This last October we had a massive ice storm. The power company, as they cut down downed limbs and trees, they just piled them up and left them for homeowners to clean up. I used it to start six 4×12 foot raised beds. I have also gotten a kiddie pool and some fabric pots to start a small ‘necessaries’ garden until I can fill my beds with organic materials. Thank you for all of the info, am a new subscriber, and will be bingeing your website tonight! Much love from Oklahoma!!!
Another money saver: call local dairies and horse farms and ask if they have any composted manure available. It’s rich in nutrients and the farms sometimes offer it free or really cheap. You can mix that into your potting/raised bed soil and end up with that much more fertile soil to grow in while cutting your costs. Another option is to contact your local arborists and ask if they can drop a load of wood chips in your driveway. They usually are happy to give you wood chips because otherwise they may have to pay to dispose of them. The wood chips can go in the bottom or on top, or both. 🙂
I garden in 9 galvanized horse troughs since they are plentiful here in Montana and I fill them with local renewable peat moss from a small pond bed along with branches, leaves, aging apples from our orchard, grass clippings, and cardboard/newspaper. We have a dairy nearby that has a methane digester putting out wonderful compost which we buy in pickup truck loads. I add worms when I find them in my garden. I just put together my first water-wicking trough after learning from Gardening with Leon. Now if it would just warm up. I don’t know what I would do without all you generous Youtube teachers.
Just built 2-8×4 beds . I put mesh cloth on bottom first, to keep voles out. People in gopher areas do this too. Cardboard at bottom, then logs, shredded wood to fill in between, leaves, emptied my compost pile into it, and got a load of OMRI soil. (Your Mels mix basically). Filled em up. And they are spouting already. This is a great method for Florida, I believe. The dirt here is pretty much sand. And we have dry winters. So with summer rains. I’m hoping the bottom volume stays moist. I love this method.
I’ve been doing that for months, kitchen scraps, yard clippings, filling two huge raised beds. Did some big limb trimming and mulched the branches, that went in too. Once it was about 1/3 full or so, I went out and got a few Huge bags of organic raised bed soil, and now I got veggies on one side of my patio and some decorative plants on the other side.
We had a giant cottonwood removed last year at the time we were building raised beds. We used the stump grindings to fill 12 beds halfway. We used a bag mix for the top half. There was still enough shredded stump for the paths between the beds. In the fall we added 6 more beds. We used plant debris for the bottom half of those beds. All the beds were topped with a couple inches of shredded leaves before winter. We forked the mulch into the beds this spring and started planting. Amazing soil now.
Thanks Kevin! Love how you just accentuated and expanded on something I already do — and I’ll definitely use some of your tips. Some additional things I use include “old used” potting mix (window boxes and containers that are ready for fresh soil after some years of use), lower quality ground soil that I partly replace when planting roses, shrubs, and perennials, leaves leaves leaves saved from last fall, and the boxes and boxes of organic matter from my husband’s orchid growing hobby (okay, “obsession” — tons of leaves, roots, flowers, and used growing medium). Thanks again — love your website — just discovered it this winter. So ready to use your tips in my small Chicago vegetable garden!
We did one bed this way this fall – so far it’s a couple of logs on the bottom, yard waste, shredded leaves, coffee grounds, some ground-up eggshells, and remnants of bagged compost; I’ll top that off with bagged mix before planting in the spring. My husband and I have decided that we’ll use our Christmas tree for the next one. 😄🎄 Learning a ton from you, Mark, Charles, Liz Zora, James Prigioni, and then for my climate MI Gardener this year.
Working on building a large garden for next growing season. Had a taste in my 1 raised bed but lacked the space until now. Have a 4×8 foot bed, 3×8, and four 3×6. Filled with layer of cardboard, twigs, other paper things, yard waste, leaves, and mixed horse manure compost. Will mulch with leaves and more cardboard for winter! So excited to grow.
Kevin, The Espoma raised bed mix is 29.50 for 1.5 CFT. I can get an Organic Garden mix from a local company which is 38 bucks for a cubic yard, it’s a 50 50 mix of screened topsoil and screened organic leaf compost. I have 5, 4×8 beds to fill which are 15 inches deep, I am using your method and grabbing branches etc and filling the bottom half, thanks for the info
Same idea for my 6 meter X 1.2 meter bed. I used an old pine tree cut into rounds & backfilled with hardwood woodchips delivered for free. Here in Australia it is very hard wood but I found it started breaking down slowly over the next year & needed topping up after each crop with compost. A good thing is that it holds a lot of moisture & reduces how much I need to water. Important here with our high temps in summer. Works really well. After 2 years now when I dig down it is great looking black loamy soil that grows anything.
You can also add a layer of sand or even pebbles at the very bottom of your raised bed for drainage, as well as take up volume so you don’t have to use so much compost. Rotted tree limbs and such are generally very easy to find along the road side in most areas or at a creek bed or such. I am assuming that you do have drain holes in the bottoms of your raised metal garden containers. Nice article and information.
You can get free mushroom compost at mushroom farms. Chip drop is free wood chips delivered from arborists. Perlite and vermiculite are pretty cheap. Peat moss is not sustainable, coco coir is an alternative but both introduce fungus gnats, especially indoors. Kratky is something to check out too. Happy gardening!
I’m so glad I was able to come across this article. I just spent a little over $100 for top soil and potting mix; and still seems like that wasn’t enough. That was my garden budget! I do have lots of grass clippings and cut up branches that I needed to do something with (spouse will be happy to see that gone). Thank you for the knowledgeable and well spoken information.
depending on what you use and grow you can go higher with the filler. In one bed I actually had sticks and twigs and leaves just bellow the surface and it caused no problems. Some plants even seem to like this. Not recommended for most root crops though or not at least until it breaks down more. Thanks for a great article Subscribe
Kevin I emailed you about this very subject, thanks for addressing it in a article. I found a article from a old Penn state cement block raised bed garden where she uses hay/straw bales. We got 2 for each bed and they fit perfectly in the large Birdie beds (which I love). Filled the rest with the soil /compost mix and just planted my cool weather veggies
I followed this plan in my new backyard raised bed this year! I filled the lower half with old soil from all my flower pots before replanting them with new potting soil. Also threw in homemade unfinished compost. It saved me the cost of two bags of raised bed mix! Also, I have a tip: Here in Michigan, the ACE Hardware stores always discount organic raised bed mix by 50 percent in early April, so I bought my bags a month before I even had a new raised bed, knowing I would have one soon enough. So my tip is to watch local ads for sales on soil very early in the spring. Totally worth it!
Yrs ago I learned a trick for taking up space in lg containers which is to literally throw in pages of newspaper, chunks of cardboard, organic filling like leaves about halfway up, then fill with soil, the filling breaks down in the soil and feeds it. It works very well. BTW those metal containers are $199 each…..ouch
Been doing a similar raised-bed hugelkultur method using materials I have free/ready access to. They are A) wooden beer/wine barrels; B) spent grain; C) plain cardboard; and D) lots of straw/grass clippings/wood debris from the yard. (The first three materials were sourced just about free from a local brewery. Be sure to drill holes in the barrels for drainage.) I use a similar method to Mark with the bulkiest wood bits at bottom, however, I have adjusted it to include the spent grain as sort of a fill-in material between the wood and the straw. The added nitrogen and high water content creates (I hope) a ready environment for the breakdown of the logs. The spent grain can get very ripe and, you don’t want it exposed to the air because of bad smell and swarming flies. So the next step is a layer of cardboard on top to make a sort of lasagna-in-a-barrel situation, leaving about 10-12″ space to the top, and watered well to start off the cardboard breakdown. A few punctures through the top of the cardboard with a tent spike will get you the drainage you need. I finish off in the same manner as you with whatever bags/mixes/compost I have on hand to get the final foot or so of top loamy mix.
Totally agree! It can be way to expensive. I have a lot of cubit feet to fill so I spoke to a tree trimmer and he brought me a day’s work worth of tree branches FOR FREE. He said I was saving him a trip to the dump and I happened to know that those trees are fed organically. I filled the bottom of my raised beds, watered it and let it settle for a couple days then added another 6 inches of branches and leaves before I filled the rest with native soil, vermicompost, homemade compost, and potting soil. I still have branches and leaves left that I’m drying to feed my future compost pile and mulching for bed cover for when the summer really gets going in SoCal.
I’m trying out a wicking bed this year with gallon milk bottles 2 holes near the top( either side), two holes in the bottom. If it rains a lot some of the water will go into the bottles and wick back out as the soil dries. I saw a couple of articles on doing this different ways, we’ll see how this works. Also did the limbs and other compost on the bottom and good soil mix on the top for my flower beds. It will be a live and learn year !
Great article, I do the same kind of things with my raised beds, it’s so brilliant. The only things that bother me more and more these days are those plastic bags that the soil comes in… They end up in land fill ie buried in the earth or being burned in Malaysia.. I dump so many plastic bags, I really want other options..
I also do mine the same way except now I reinforce the bottom to keep miles out then I throw a ton of shredded cardboard and yard waste in. Then over time lvls go down and I have to break apart and do it all over again but I have never bought a bag from a store yet. Also I’d like to add every time I find a worm I throw those in as well
Additional information for filling your raised beds: For beds >18″ tall, you can fill bottom 50% with any type of organic fill material (logs, sticks, grass clippings, twigs, unfinished compost, etc. Then, fill the top 6-12″ with a high quality mix of your choosing (see below). To save the most money, use larger volume organic matter like the logs, sticks, etc. and use stuff on your property. Soil Mixes: – Espoma Organic Raised Bed Mix: espoma.com/where-to-buy/ – Mel’s Mix: 1/3 compost, 1/3 peat moss, 1/3 vermiculite – Joe Lamp’ls Mix: 50% topsoil, 25% compost, 25% other organic matter Tall Raised Beds: shop.epicgardening.com/products/tall-6-in-1-metal-raised-garden-bed
New follower here: I was perusal a article by Martha Stewart and her gardener a while ago and they recommend using bubble wrap and weed barrier at the bottom of containers to 1) Help with drainage and 2) Make it easier to move containers around since bubble wrap is lighter than wood and rocks. What are your thoughts on that?
I filled the bottom six inches of my 24″ raised beds with the low quality clay soils I had to get rid of in my yard on my first couple of raised beds, but the next six I’ve done exactly as you suggest. The big mistake I made was with the first two beds that were put in close to a young peach tree and I’d never even thought to put weed matting on the bottom. Five years later, peach tree is 10 feet tall and both these raised beds have been choked out by the roots of that tree sucking the life out of all the vegies in them. All I can do is dig out all that soil and lay down weed mat hoping it will do the job and start again!
How very appropriate that this article should appear today, as I’m building a new raised bed in my home garden (I’m in lockdown London..) I’m filling up most of the bed with wood chips, free from the local tree surgeon. I will also bulk up the precious little compost I have with coconut coir. Would you please consider going peat free, as peat moss is hugely unsustainable and intensive mining of peat has adverse effects on the climate, and destroys valuable ecosystems. In the UK, peat is being phased out, and although we did not meet the target of 2020,it will happen. Thanks for great content and useful website! 🌱🌱
I agree totally, I have filled 5 raised beds with old wood, live next to a forest, about 1/3 of the volume, then really cheap pottingmix ( mostly peat) and topped it with really proffessional soil mix and added mulch over the years. It’s important not to dig deep in the bed, as the Wood must not mix with soil or it will rob it off nitrogen. Only dig to plant on the surface.
Great article!💚 You can also use empty water bottles, 2 liters, or milk jugs in the bottom to take up space. This works really well on large patio pots that you may be moving around a lot. Also a lot of cities have a compost yard where you can get it free if you haul it. I know not every one has a truck, but 5 gallon buckets and a few trips in your car may be worth it💚
🌷 Wow, great information Mr. ‘Epic Gardening’! Thank you! And so many great comments also! Where I live, there must be 50 gophers to every man, woman & child! (only a little bit of exaggeration here 🙂 So I absolutely must put a connected mesh or small-hole chicken fencing at the bottom. I’ve tried everything to be rid of them, from cat poop into the hole (that helps a bit) to traps- nothing really worked. A neighbor suggested I sit by the gopher hole with a beer and a shotgun! I didn’t think getting the gophers drunk would help much 😁 Sooo it’s raised beds for me! My best to all 💚🪴
They throw away dryers in my apartment complex all the time…. and for some reason the inner drum is commonly out sitting Next to the machine…. I took one and it makes a perfect raised be (with drainage holes!) I’m not sure how hard or easy it is to take out the drum your self but it’s an idea and also there are also probably places that have all the washers getting thrown away I don’t know where but my apartment complex is one place LOL
I climbed my roof about a month ago to rake down the leaves left by a tree I have (willow looking with little hollow red beads) and gathered them in a 10g bucket. Left it out in the sun and rain for a month then began to smell like strong fertilizer.. I dumped out the water, not knowing how valuable it was but used the mulch to mix with the dirt around my house along with egg shells and fruit compost… hope it works!
Never filled raised beds with logs, but will be doing so this year as we have a “new home” wit trees that needed to be removed. What we have done in the past fo raised beds is use wood chips which are easier to move as we have matured. Also put a layer in the bottom of our larger pots, never had a problem with them taking nutrients from the plants and have had to water less during the heat of the summer.
Hey Epic. I have heard from another website that too much wood products in your soil will take nitrogen to decompose – and that this will detract from the nitrogen available for your plants. Would this be the case in placing logs and sticks etc as filler at the bottom of your containers? Or is the whole point that the root system will never reach down there?
I found a great free raised bed when we replaced our king size air bed!! Recovering from a car accident, we purchased a king size air bed. 10 years later, i am able to sleep on a regular bed and found that a king size air bed is made up of two plastic twin size rectangles with a couple of crossbars, they all snap together. Just remove the “plastic puffy section” and u have 2 giant plastic raised beds. I’va called the company to ask what they do with old beds and, of course, the salesperson didn’t know. I was Super successful with them, but have since retired these and invested in a waist-high bed, due to my disabled legs.
OMG. I’m at a minute fifteen seconds in and I have to say, thank you. Thank you for actually having raised beds instead of a bed on the ground with a boarder around it. To me anything lower than mid thigh, is not a raised bed, but a garden bed that has a boarder around it. Whether it’s in a kiddy pool or not. Unless you put the kiddie pool up on something, it’s not raised.
This is exactly how I filled my two 8’x4’x12″ and one 4’x12’x12″ beds last year plus some new whiskey barrels and troughs this year. Logs, sticks last years dead peppers, ect… in the bottom. Top soil mixed with cocoa coir, peat, aged manure, composted leaves and fresh compost on top. I had a great garden last year. Tripling it this year and doing it much the same again. At the very bottom a layer of cardboard and mesh to keep out animals and weeds. It has so many earthworms this year its incredible.
IMPORTANT INFO: You need to tell people that this only works for annuals or things that dont mind being dug up. The soil level will be constantly sinking as the organic matter in the bottom decomposes. You need to add new soil or organic matter regularly until it’s only soil left. I have seen so many people plant perennials in this type of mix and then dont know how to deal with the sinking soil.
Just finding your articles & enjoying them. Another, method, I learned from @Gardening with Leon. recycling, large nontoxic plastic bottles, to fill the bottom of tall containers( 2 liter drink, etc ) in my cattle mineral tubs, I acquire. Thanks for this, appreciate & will be checking out more of your work.
My garden is all container now, and I haven’t bought soil in 5 years. I keep 2 big plastic bins for vegetable matter compost – kitchen, end of garden, sticks, leaves, etc but not grass clippings. Down here in FL the grass tends to mat into clumps and just not mix in well. I half and half that compost with our regular sand soil. Some gravel in the bottom of the container, a layer of spanish moss to cover the gravel, my soil mix to just below the lip, and mulch with spanish moss. All the containers are on a table unless a storm is coming, then they are moved inside. I like concept of raised beds, but the mobility of containers.
I had a 4 by 8 raised flower and vegetable bed. About 2 and a half to 3 feet tall. I filled it first with 2 to 3 bags of pet bedding then I used 4 bags of miracle grow potting soil. It was very nice. Had it for ten years but it was made out treated wood logs and I painted it which caused rain to cause it to rot inside. So it lasted only ten years.
Just filled our 8x4x2 raised garden bed last night; started by completely covering the bottom with cardboard, then sticks/logs and leaves, then added a ton of grass clippings, realized we had a ton of leftover burned wood from our fire pit, as well as a ton of charcoal ash 😍 added all of that then topped it off with 12″ of 1/2compost 1/2topsoil and mulch. These plants are going to be VERY happy 🥰
Perfect timing for this article. I have a couple 24″ tall planter pots and have been wondering what to use in the bottom, not only to fill but for the weight factor. I was considering using twigs other organic matter. In the past, I have used larger pieces of styrofoam because I can still move the container around. I just don’t like the idea of using something that doesn’t add anything good to the soil. I live in an apartment, so it may be hard to find enough stuff here to fill the bottoms. I plan to grow tomatoes in these containers with some herbs and marigolds around the edges.
what i like is heavy logs in the bottom layer then lawn trimmings and table scraps (like vegetable and meat scraps /fish heads also ) then sticks and more lawn trimmings and then about 4 in of cheap soil from the store but think of it like this big things at the bottom then mid sized then small then dirt for the plants ( i make my soil about 1 month be for i plant so its ready when i want it but you can also plant right away my raised garden is 4 ft tall i hope this will help some 1 and let me know if you think its bad or to much or so on
Great idea!! My husband just made a large raised bed on whole side of our house about 20′ long. Being that we live on a sloped hill, the way he did it the higher part of the bed is taller about 20″ or so and and the others slightly shorter 10″ and 5″. Think of it like a stairs if you will. As I seen how much “new soil” we are going to have to purchase, it became a bit daunting the cost is going to be! So I seen this article. My biggest concern is the items we use to fill that large bed, such as compost, logs, etc….I wanted the raised bed for two reasons, one I am getting older and being on the ground kills my back and knees, easier access. My second reason is I have weeds and crabgrass!! UGH these are my enemies and I figured with a raised bed, I don’t have to continually pull these pest from my beds, like I do now from the ground. My question to you is, if I were to add those items, like you mentioned about clippings from your yard, won’t they grow in the dirt and peep their ugly little heads in my bed?? Just wondering.
Thank you for this! My mom and I on a whim built a big raised bed for veggies just two days ago out of a bunch of wood we had laying around and were wondering how we were going to afford all the soil. After perusal this article we filled up the bottom with debris we cleaned up from the surrounding area and it’s gonna be just great! Thank you so much! Love the website! My question is how to get earthworms in there. Will they find their way or do I have to find some and put them in there?
Yes, this is definitely the way to go. One thing to watch out for is sinking of the bottom half material, quite quickly, and over time, so the top surface of the soil may end up quite a way down from the top of the raised bed container. So if you have time and patience, you could wait a week for the soil mix and bottom mixture of logs, twigs etc to subside, then add more soil mix.
I’m even more cheap, I go sticks & mulch for the bottom layer, then about an 8 inch layer of Garden Soil mixed with kitchen scrap compost for nutrients, and only a 6 inch layer of potting soil mix at the top. I also find the best deal on soil is Miracle Gro at Walmart. Been doing it this way for a while, it’s cheap and everything grows like kings.
Thank you for confirming my suspicions that you could mix hugelkultur with raised beds! I grabbed two Birdie’s beds and was planning on chucking some razed boxwood bushes in to them along with some branches and grass clippings before I put down the good soil. Now I know not to worry and just keep going with the plan!
Well done. What do you do for a shady yard? I’ve been perusal you all winter off and on. Thanks for your insight. I found Self Sufficient Me about a month ago. I wasn’t sure if his methods would work in North East US. because of the difference in climate. Glad to hear you think his methods work. I found Mel Bartholomew on PBS in the early 90s. My Square Food Gardening book has a 1981 copy write.
Glad I found this article! Thank you! This will save me $$. I just bought a raised bed and several people suggested filling it up halfway with plastic bottles. What is your take on this advice? I don’t have a lot of organic in my yard however I can possibly gather some from elsewhere. I see some people suggested cardboard. I can try that as well.
I have a 100-gallon stock tank we used as a chicken brooder that I’m now going to use as a raised bed. I’ve got 10 felled pine trees which I will harvest several larger sticks/logs from and some compostable items that I will use for 60% bottom fill and then top off with potting soil. My squash and eggplants will make their home here and I’m hopeful this will work well. Gardening…ain’t it grand? 🙂
Love the website and like the idea of filling beds with free organic matter like wood and lawn clippings, although not convinced paying approximately $60 on 5 raise bad soil bags to fill the top of a raised bed will save you money. I have almost a quarter of an acre of raised beds, so I have to use what won’t break the bank. I priced out using the peat moss and it is the best bang for your buck to purchase as a water retention and porous soil filler if you have to buy bags. For a compost that is filled with nutrient that I have gotten several tons of, which is made up of aged wood chips and decomposed compost, I go at the dump and it is FREE! After everything is said and done, nutrients, bagged moss, stone dust and biological fungicide to break down the organic matter over time, it runs me about $20 per 50 gallons. That’s a third the price of the raised bed soil mix! Espoma didn’t send the bags for marketing did they?
My husband built me two raised beds (upto my hips) that are 3 ft x 5 ft and about 18 inches deep. This is my first time gardening so your article helped so much because I was worried about the cost to fill these beds. I have twigs and grass clippings that I’ll layer on the bottom but my question is do I mix the compost and top soil together or layer it?
Hügelkultur is great but it can also draw in termites. That’s not always a problem but it can be if the raised bed is close to a wooden structure such as a house. Kevin, tell Espoma they need to be more accessible on the East Coast. Their products are great but shipping is prohibitively expensive on potting soil.
I think I want to start on Sunday or Tuesday building my first of many raised garden beds. I have lumber that was given to me. They are fence posts and treated fencing lumber from a torn down fence. I’m not worried about the treated lumber as I’ve seen several articles detailing the changes made to treated lumber. I feel safe using this free product. I Iive in the country, and have an abundance of fallen trees and other fill debris, and I can pick up rather large bags of raised bed garden mix at my local Walmart. I will begin my first compost pile, and will be able to amend that soil over time with my own concoction, but for now, it’ll be hugelkultur beds topped off with bagged mix. I can hardly wait!
I really like Robbie and Gary show that’s how I found you someone mentioned you and she does a lot of do it yourself quick cheap routines with plastic totes and all kinds of kitchen scraps garden scapes I really like her savings you might want to check it out she is definitely a little crazy but I like her show. I am using her methods for my garden I live in a forest in Oregon I was from San Diego and I’m overlooking a forest full of animals so I have to do everything on a deck with raised beds which will be totes with holes in them on chairs.
Hey Kevin, you know thr cost of having raised beds was daunting until today, but I’m 80 and bending down to garden is not an option if I’m goingto use up the space I’ve got. You know what? I have a double garage. The car doesn’t fit in there because there are so many furniture pieces that won’t be used anymore and you’ve given me the idea to chop up as necessary what’s not wanted. Thank you Kevin.
Don’t judge me, I’m just asking! But what about putting not quite finished sawdust-based humanure (like, say, composting for 6 months) in the bottom half or bottom third? Or maybe layering that with fall leaves? What about potty bokashi? It is supposed to be buried, after all. And I am talking about an open-bottom garden bed which would be in contact with the ground, of course following all the humanure rules – proper distance from water sources, etc. Again, just curious! Trying to think ahead for when I’m outside of city limits. I know there’s an ick factor, but ecologically, it doesn’t seem much different than having a septic tank. Hot composting kinda makes it less icky, imo.
How I layer my raised beds;starting at the bottom…cheap bagged top soil, then sharp sand (not the playground stuff), and top with composted cow manure. That’s the ‘dead zone’. For the ‘planting zone’; peat moss, premium potting mix, and top the bed with mushroom and horse manure compost (get it from mushrooms farms). I adjust the NPK levels according to what I’m going to grow with blood meal (just a little bit), or fish bone meal and sometimes I water it in with a weak Epsom salt solution. Mulch the bed (I use hardwood mulch without any dyes) and keep it watered for a week. It’s ready to plant after that and once the season is done I turn everything under for the Winter, bringing the ‘dead zone’ to the top. The next Spring I top off the bed with new mushroom compost and it’s ready for that season.
I’m planning on starting my own raised bed gardening at some point soon and have been trying to research how to fill my garden bed most efficiently. I’m definitely going to be employing the hugelkultur method, but am still trying to figure out what I should be putting in the top portion? Every article I come across in relation to mixing soil, shows gardeners buying bags of compost from the store and using that for their “compost” portion of the mix. I understand it’s important to have different blends of compost, but I’ve been making my own compost over the last year or so in the backyard from mostly grass clippings, dead leaves, card board, old newspapers, kitchen scraps, and other yard waste. Am I able to substitute this kind of compost in to my Mel’s mix? Would this be a sufficient enough source of nutrients for my plants or should I be going and getting different types of compost to supplement as well? I should add, my compost looks pretty healthy and is nice and dark and rich, with tons of worms. I just don’t want it to go to waste after I’ve been working on it for so long now.
@Epic Gardening I have 6 gigantic pots 30″ and 18″ deep….can this be used in them or do I need to make a potting soil mix instead. If so, do you have a recipe for diy potting soil? I saw the one for seed starting but I wasn’t sure if seedlings and small plants need the same ingredients. Someone help! I have 10 live plants I need to get into dirt. 😃 I have coco coir, manure, compost, perlite, bone meal, blood and alfalfa meal. Gardening faeries, can you hear me? Your website is a God send!! <3
looking in my neighbourhood. People remove all the organic material from their gardens. And in spring they buy from the store. Almost a decade ago I saw the impact of the usage of peat on the environment and climate. So I don’t use it and I urge everybody to not use peat. This vid shows you can use so many more things depending on where you live. I create 95% of my own soil, it’s rewarding to see stuff grow on it.