[van connick]

i am laying out a raised flower/veg bed from scratch. i have plenty of well rotted manure and soil.
i want the bed to be about 2 feet high, so what would be the best way of doing it?

should i put loads of manure in first then cover with soil?
or do it in layers, or would it be better if i was to dig it in and distribute it throughout the bed.?

and what would be the best way to get rid of the manure i dont need?
we dont have many lotties in this area, but if the ones that are here wanted it, would they collect it, or would i have to deliver it, and should i charge them for it, or just the diesel money......there are 7 ponies and two donkeys here, so there is quite a lot of manure, and it is a never ending supply....fofl....

it seems such a waste to leave it in heaps in the fields, when it could be used.


any suggestions?

[Trillium]

For putting manure into the veg beds, you'll get all the ideas okayed. It's more a matter of what you're able to manage. If you can't work long at it, then the rotovator might be better, but die-hards like our Munty will insist that shoveling it in is best. If your soil has never had manure applied before, it might help fluff the soil out by rotovating it in, then next year deciding what best appeals to you.

As for sharing your barnyard wealth, I'll leave that to others since it's different across the pond.

[WG.]

I'd expect manure to be free to collect.  But if you bag it, or load it, or deliver it then you should be able to charge something for that.  Your time is more expensive than diesel.

I can't understand why you have too much manure though.  I'd be putting it back onto your own fields.

As for the raised beds - most flowers will produce fewer flowers if they are overfed.  You might find you get all leaf if there is too much dung in there.

Also I'd suggest keeping all the manure in the top foot of the bed since any deeper than that may get a bit too airless for it to breakdown properly.

[van connick]

hi WG

we dont put it back on the fields, we usually use pig manure.

i dont mind giving the stuff away...lol...i was just not sure the way things are done... :oops:

i think am going to bag a lot of it aswell, and put it at the gate for people to take with them..

thanks for the tips about the raised bed, i am estimating it will be aout 20 feet diameter, so that should use a little manure up.....

[WG.]

You are looking at 18 cubic metres of material to do that.  Around 40 tonnes of top soil.

In practice it won't all be needed at once since a given volume will weigh less after digging or rotovating.  Also the manure will bulk things up quite a bit.

[van connick]

i am assuming that it will have to be topped up every so often as the manure rots down even more

sorry, sounding a bit thick here, but i am new to all this, and i would like to do so much, but i have to start somewhere....lol...and raised beds are the first on my list.

[WG.]

Will you be using anything to retain the soil or will you simply bank it up?

Raised beds are usually made narrower so that you never need to walk on them.  At 20ft diameter you will need to get onto them for weeding etc

[van connick]

oh crikey, never thought of that........

what i am trying to do is tidy up one of the fields......

it has a very long drive, ending in a sort of roundabout. i would like to put the raised bed in the middle of the roundabout.
it will be fenced so the ponies cant get onto it or eat it...lol....but i want it to look nice because it will be seen by the public who come to buy eggs veg, ponies etc ( hence the roundabout for easy access back to the gate )
maybe it would be better if i was to have two smaller raised beds then i would be able to weed them from the sides......
the beds will be ( hopefully ) contained iside sleepers or something similar

this gardening lark is very complicated..... :roll:

[WG.]

Easiest might be to create it with sloping sides (rising from a sleeper height) and place stepping stones across it for weeding access.

Or how about a nice big rockery?  Have you got plenty of stone?

[van connick]

omg a rockery would be wonderful, what a great idea, but sadly no stone.....but we do have a few quarries around here so maybe......

[gobs]

In case, you don't get stones. Your idea might work well and could look very good with a centre piece like a standard rose or similar, even a handsome scarecrow and paths radiating from there dividing the area into wedges, bit like a herb will on a larger scale. Good luck with it!

Most lottie folk round here do not have the means to transport enough amounts of muck, if you could deliver they would be well pleased to pay, it is around £15-20 for a load, here.

[van connick]

another brilliant idea Gobs......i think that would look great.....a mr scarecrow.....then i can plant around him......

[gobs]

I'm pleased you like it but don't forget, you will need some support around for a raised bed as per WG, It does not need to be round, you can do a octagon or whatever many corners from some planks.

[van connick]

it will be supported by lengths of telegraph poles. we used them for the uprights in the big sheds and we have loads of cut offs.......
and it will have a fence around it about 3 feet high, with a gap of 3 feet between the fence and the raised bed, so i can walk round the inside.
the fence is to stop the ponies eating anything that is planted in it....

i have been thinking about it over the past few days, and have come up with an idea based on the suggestions from here.

i am going to have one end of it higher than the other, say 1 pole rising to 4 poles so it will be sloping, with the face of it pointing up the drive, i will get OH to dig in the manure ( i cant because of back and hip probs ) then i will plant natural remedy herbs in it ( got a great book on natural remedies for horses ) with a few bedding plants for colour....then topping the lot i will have a MR and MRS scarecrow.....

now it is just putting it into practise........fofl

[WG.]

If you have a lot of utility pole offcuts they give a nice effect when placed side-by-side vertically.  This lets you create infinite variations in height (think wavy rather than stepped).  I prefer it since the wood looks more natural than when it is lying flat.

Might need mechanised help to build it though.

All I could find on Google images was this small example - I'm sure you can picture what I mean on a much larger scale