[Tykelad]

Hi all. I am new to all this. I have been threatening to start growing my own veggies for years and now have the space to do it. I have made myself 4 raised beds (3m X 1.5m) and am ready to fill them. My other half has horses and therefore i have both well rotted and fresh manure. My questions are :

1. Do i dig up the grass in the bottom before i fill it ?
2. Do i put well rotted manure in the bottom and then top soil or mix it ?
3. I read on another topic that a bloke was warned to keep the manure away from root veg. What does that mean ?

I have also bought myself a green house ! Its all go !

Thanks in advance

Tyke

[strangerachael]

Wow lucky you - that must be really exciting  good luck. If I were you I would start by looking at the 'Vegetable Growing Help' section on this site, this should answer most of your questions to begin with.

[Jamie Butterworth]

Giving root vegetables manure will mean that they fork producing wiered crops, they prefer a light sandy soil pretty low in nutrients so that there roots can go down looking for them, thus producing longer carrots.

[digalotty]

hi mate you dont say how high the raised beds are iff you have plenty of depth then your ok to fill but if not then cut the turf out and loosen up the ground with a fork first, also if you can try and make them only as wide as you can reach to the centre , this will save your back and stop you treading on the beds once they have been loosend up.
as for the compost it realy depends on what you intend to grow as jamie says roots dont like rich soil but potatoes and beans do

[UrbanG]

Hi Tykelad,

What I did with my 2 new raised beds this year (Also my 1st attempt) Is I dug up the grass and flipped it over, I then chopped it up a little with a spade. I then covered the upturned grass and roots with a good layer of newspaper before filling the beds with a mix of top soil and compost the watered it very well.

I believe the idea is that the newspaper will cover the grass from light which then eventually dies away and composts and the paper (over time) also rots away.

I found this tip off off this site but cannot remember where atm.

Good luck

Scott (UrbanG)

[Tykelad]

Thanks everyone. My beds are approx 0.5m high. (3 decking boards) if that helps.
I intend growing Potatoes, Carrots, Cabbage, Peas and Onions

Should i have a rotation type thing going in the future ?

[moose]

0.5 m high is a bit higher than many of us use and it will take a lot of compost, topsoil and manure to fill. Most of my beds are 8" tall with a couple at 10" for the parsnips and carrots. Yes you do need some sort of rotation but it's not something to get hung up about just don't follow like with like.