Deep Question RE: Raised Beds

[Pakanohida]

What do you find is the best material & why?

[gardenlen]

for us spent mushroom compost (common name) from the mush' farm, on top of whatever else we have around and then we mulch with sugar cane mulch (cheepest and easiest to get), then all spent vege' plants and all rottable scraps from the kitchen get tucked under the mulch to feed the medium, no fertilisers and no manures needed, though if manures were easily available i would use them.

too easy realy no science needed, no slash and burn technology needed, new gardens to be built as high as the width of corrugated roofing will be filled with tree material (hugelkultur) in the bottom on top of oodles of cardboard (saved) and newspaper, with the addition of gypsum and here some dolomite as well.

no weeds no digging, no fuss

len

[chook-in-eire]

Hi Len,
Where do you get your mushroom compost?
If it's non-organic commercial production I'd be worried about pesticide residues. I've been to mushroom farms here and the amount of pesticide cans sitting in the yard seriously gave me the creeps (organophosphates and all). I've only eaten organic ones since.

[Unmutual]

I've been using the Square Foot Gardening method in my raised beds because of my sandy soil(sand backfill over a clay hardpan...living on reclaimed swamp in the Greater New Orleans area has its challenges). I used this because 1) the method works and works well, 2) it holds water well, 3) supplies all the nutrients and has the right Ph from the start and it has been a great way to make sure I have even the lightest shade of green for a thumb before I moved on to other methods. I'd still suggest the SFG method for anyone with limited space.

Having said that, I'll be moving to a more natural system using crop rotation and chickens, hopefully at the end of this year. This will put me from 176 square feet to 315 square feet for annual veggie production. I'll also be moving all of my young fruit trees to a small 10' x 25' orchard area(maybe 12' x 25'). I figure if I keep everything trimmed in the orchard(mostly citrus), I can get away with 5'x5' or 6'x6' per tree. The "Mel's Mix" from the old SFG beds will be used to add some organic matter to the new beds. I'll be importing a few truckloads of compost if my own compost isn't enough(I've been making some myself, but I figure that I can get away with putting the materials straight to the chickens). I might take a season off from veggie gardening next year just to let the chickens sort everything out.

I have lots to do this year in the back yard, including figuring out how I want to store water in the soil. But to store water in the soil, I need more than just sand. I think it will take me several years to build up the soil in my back yard, especially while growing food.

[Michaelangelica]

Hi Len,
Where do you get your mushroom compost?
If it's non-organic commercial production I'd be worried about pesticide residues. I've been to mushroom farms here and the amount of pesticide cans sitting in the yard seriously gave me the creeps (organophosphates and all). I've only eaten organic ones since.

I found the pH of commercial m/compost varied enormously, enough to stuff the pH of my soil when i was using a lot of it as mulch

[pebble]

Hi Len,
Where do you get your mushroom compost?
If it's non-organic commercial production I'd be worried about pesticide residues. I've been to mushroom farms here and the amount of pesticide cans sitting in the yard seriously gave me the creeps (organophosphates and all). I've only eaten organic ones since.

That's interesting. Here you can't buy organic mushrooms, but sometimes the ones sold in organic shops are sold as 'spray free'. The prevailing idea is that you don't need pesticides to grow mushrooms. Methinks I will investigate further.

[cottager]

What do you find is the best material & why?

Not necessarily the best material (as in, there's always something better!), but I process EVERY scrap of food waste, tree trimmings, grass clippings, herbivore animal manure and cardboard (that gets saved to go on top) into bathtub worm farms. The bathtubs are raised to waist height for easy access, both to the top, and to the worm liquid that is accumulated in buckets underneath.

I gave away my compost bins a year or two ago (found that all I was doing was composting, then moving them to the bathtubs anyway, so being the "lazy" gardener that I am, I decided to ditch the compost bins and compost and farm worms in the same place, aka the bathtubs).

From this I generate a few cubic metres a year of soil/worm castings/compost, which goes into the raised beds, which I mulch with spent (rabbit food) lucerne hay and plant leafy greens into. As a rotational system, this works for me ... when the raised beds have compacted, after the green crop, the soil is delightful and only needs a top-up once or twice a year.

Oh, I do add kelp to the bathtubs when I can get my hands on it, and a bit of dolomite lime if I see a few vinegar flies.

Perhaps not perfect, but after a couple of decades of trying systems, this one is the easiest to use and maintain for me ... I know the inputs are "-cide" free and the end result grows great veggies, so it can't be too terrible

PS. When I add chickens, their cage/pen-cleanings will be another, welcome, addition to the inputs.
PPS. I also make bio-char, which is put into the worm-liquid buckets (about a double-handful) and then tipped back over the worm-farm or directly poured onto the garden beds that look like they need a boost.

[S.O.P]

Best material is the cheapest and easiest for you to procure. You then take those materials and put them together as how you envision nature intended, and maybe give a helping hand where applicable.

But you already knew that.

[eco4560]

SLA.

(Stuff lying around)

Which is really the same answer as everyone else. I top off a pile of whatever with some home made compost and a layer of mulch hay or sugar cane.

[Pakanohida]

I understand what everyone is filling the beds with... ..but what did you do to make a raised permanent bed?

Rocks, straw bales that have to constantly be replaced, concrete, milled wood, other?