[Yana]

Ive built 5 deep raised beds, and I mean deep.......60cm high, by 1.2M by1.2M. The ideas is to grow carrots in them. Thing is I do not have enough 'spare' soil/earth to fill them.
Could I fill them a bit with weeds and then cover with newspaper and then add well rotted manure and top with compost/ soil that is deep enough to take the carrot roots?

[DD.]

Well rotted manure may still contain lumps and that's not good for carrots.

Apart from that the whole lot's going to rot down and your soil will sink.

I'd say overall, not a good plan

[jay001]

Well rotted manure may still contain lumps and that's not good for carrots.

Apart from that the whole lot's going to rot down and your soil will sink.

I'd say overall, not a good plan

dd have i done wrong as well cos i have a 4 compartent planter in canvas and yeah you guessed .amazon yet again  each section is 1 foot square cos of cost of compost when shopping on line i used a bit of rubble at the bottom and then topped up with my planter compost,one has carrot,s 2nd has parsnip,s and 3 and 4 were topped up higher with rubble and weeds for my baby swede and turnips figered i was being clever cos i thought they dont have such a deep root !!! oop,s 

[mattwragg94]

hmmm  jay how much soil did you put ontop of the rubble - because as DD says as soon as they hit the rubble they will fork. and what type of weeks did you put in aswell - if they where annuals with no seed heads on them they will be fine but if you added that are perenials you'll end up with a planter full of weeds!

[jay001]

hmmm  jay how much soil did you put ontop of the rubble - because as DD says as soon as they hit the rubble they will fork. and what type of weeks did you put in aswell - if they where annuals with no seed heads on them they will be fine but if you added that are perenials you'll end up with a planter full of weeds!

ooh come on matt you are talking to a total novice gardener here how am i supposed know what the weeds where  all i know is now i have yet again something else that i need to be worried about   

[GrannieAnnie]

Don't worry so much Jay.  We are all learning something new every day, and if something doesn't work one year, then we won't do it again the next! 

I do hope your rubble base doesn't make your carrots fork, but even if they do, they will still taste lovely!  Where we live we don't have any stones in the ground, and my carrot bed the other year wasn't manured, but I still got this carrot in the photo! lol

We also have a sticky about identifying weeds:

http://chat.allotment-garden.org/index.php?topic=75018.0

which may help, and you will soon learn which ones are annual and which ones are perennials.

As your raised beds are new, the soil will mulch down, then next year you can top it up a bit and possibly be able to make them a bit taller? 

[lochnesslass]

Ive built 5 deep raised beds, and I mean deep.......60cm high, by 1.2M by1.2M. The ideas is to grow carrots in them. Thing is I do not have enough 'spare' soil/earth to fill them.



we have the same problem bed is almost built and is 18'' deep, 2m by 1. something! eeek my dad said we will need several tons of ground to fill it.
we can get the top soil from a farm but no means of transporting it, so frustrating

[Swing Swang]

Ive built 5 deep raised beds, and I mean deep.......60cm high, by 1.2M by1.2M. The ideas is to grow carrots in them. Thing is I do not have enough 'spare' soil/earth to fill them.



we have the same problem bed is almost built and is 18'' deep, 2m by 1. something! eeek my dad said we will need several tons of ground to fill it.
we can get the top soil from a farm but no means of transporting it, so frustrating

If you sink your paths not only can the soil be used to fill the raised beds, but you'll also get the height you want with less effort.