Luckily for everyone, there are ways to fill garden beds cheaply without depleting your savings account. Here are some of the best tips that work without causing your garden to fail.
Hugo Gardening
Never heard of Great Culture Gardening? Don't let the name fool you; it's an easy gardening method that is effective and yields a bountiful harvest.
The main idea behind giant culture gardening is to bury as much decaying debris as possible under the soil. It could be twigs, food scraps, grass clippings, sawdust, chopped leaves and other materials. You'll also want to add logs that will crash over time; must provide large chunks for large cultures.
If using this method, the bed will need to be filled 10-12 inches deep, filling any gaps with decayed material and soil.
Lasagne Gardening
Lasagna gardening is similar in theory to large culture gardening, but you have to think about the layers you create. At the bottom of the raised bed, you add a layer of cardboard to cover the grass and kill any weeds. It also stops weeds from growing later.
After the cardboard, add a layer of leaves and more cardboard. Continue creating layers with different organic materials and soils. You're basically creating a compost bin in your garden beds, as everything will gradually decompose.
try core gardening
Most people have never heard of core gardening. When you first read it, you might think it's too complicated and unlikely to be useful to you, but you'd be wrong. Core Gardening created a "sponge" in the center of the garden to retain moisture, absorbing two feet of water from two directions.
Core gardening drastically reduces the amount of watering you need, but most gardeners say you'll have fewer weeds.
Dig a garden bed ten inches deep in the center of the raised bed. Lay out several layers of cardboard and fill the cardboard core with straw bales, leaves, grass clippings, or old twigs. You can use one or a combination of these materials.
Fill the remainder of the core with a mixture of topsoil, compost, and potting soil. This ditch looks like a mound in the middle of the garden and needs to be watered thoroughly to keep the plants hydrated throughout the gardening season.
Gardening with Ruth Stott
Ruth Stout's gardening is akin to back-to-Eden gardening. The idea behind this type of gardening is to cover all bare soil with organic mulch, which eventually breaks down into the ground and adds nutrients. Keeping the soil covered has several benefits, such as reducing erosion and suppressing weed growth.
When you garden with RuthStout, you cover your entire garden with a thick layer of hay. You put all the plants in your garden with hay around them. Other methods use wood chips or compost, and for these methods to be effective, you must make sure the layer is four to six inches deep.
Use this method to help fill up your loft bed quickly!
add peat moss
If you go to any gardening store, you will find large bags of peat moss. Sphagnum moss is acidic, so you have to be careful not to add too much to the soil unless you are growing acidophilic plants like peppers, rhododendrons or sweet potatoes.
However, adding peat moss to your soil is a great way to avoid buying extra bags of potting soil or topsoil.
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9 Inexpensive Ways to Fill a Raised Garden
Beds can be expensive, and if you have a gardening budget, you may be wondering how to fill raised beds on the cheap. Even if they have money, no one wants to spend a lot of money to get dirty!
Two years ago, I filled several garden beds with bagged soil and spent over $50 per garden bed. If you have four or more beds, it adds up quickly! I decided I didn't want to spend any more money and have been looking for cheaper ways to fill my garden beds for the last year.
As it turns out, there are several ways to expand garden soil without spending more money. Don't leave your wallet empty when you're filling up your raised bed; here are some of my top tips, plus what you need to know about the soil you need for your raised bed.
Garden Soil vs. Raised Bed Soil
When you're building a raised garden bed, you might think that you can fill the bed with garden soil, but that's not the case. You want to use the right soil for your bed, provide your plants with the right amount of nutrients and drain to avoid standing water.
Let's look at some of the differences between garden soil and raised bed soil.
Decomposition of organic matter
One of the main differences is that garden soil breaks down humus and organic matter faster than it restores them, unless roots are planted so deep that they can drive nutrients deep into the ground.
All plants need nutrients, and humus is essential. The more humus in your garden soil, the better it is for your plants and vegetables. You want to provide your plants with nutrients throughout the growing season; that's not easy in garden soil.
Garden soil contains more moisture
Plants need water to grow, and soil moisture is an important part of root development. However, if the water is not drained properly, it may cause
Salt garden soil
Another difference is that garden soil has more salt in it than raised bed soil. Salt is highly corrosive; it can even damage sidewalks and driveways if left in place! Most plants cannot grow in soils that contain too much salt.
9 Ways to Inexpensively Fill a Raised Bed
When I first filled my raised beds with earth bags from Walmart, I decided I couldn't afford the garden beds I wanted. A loft bed is expensive but not a big deal, but I have plenty of them in my garden. I had to figure out how to fill up the loft bed cheaply.
Luckily for everyone, there are ways to fill garden beds cheaply without depleting your savings account. Here are some of the best tips that work without causing your garden to fail.
Hugo Gardening
Never heard of Great Culture Gardening? Don't let the name fool you; it's an easy gardening method that is effective and yields a bountiful harvest.
The main idea behind giant culture gardening is to bury as much decaying debris as possible under the soil. It could be twigs, food scraps, grass clippings, sawdust, chopped leaves and other materials. You'll also want to add logs that will crash over time; must provide large chunks for large cultures.
If using this method, the bed will need to be filled 10-12 inches deep, filling any gaps with decayed material and soil.
Lasagne Gardening
Lasagna gardening is similar in theory to large culture gardening, but you have to think about the layers you create. At the bottom of the raised bed, you add a layer of cardboard to cover the grass and kill any weeds. It also stops weeds from growing later.
After the cardboard, add a layer of leaves and more cardboard. Continue creating layers with different organic materials and soils. You're basically creating a compost bin in your garden beds, as everything will gradually decompose.
try core gardening
Most people have never heard of core gardening. When you first read it, you might think it's too complicated and unlikely to be useful to you, but you'd be wrong. Core Gardening created a "sponge" in the center of the garden to retain moisture, absorbing two feet of water from two directions.
Core gardening drastically reduces the amount of watering you need, but most gardeners say you'll have fewer weeds.
Dig a garden bed ten inches deep in the center of the raised bed. Lay out several layers of cardboard and fill the cardboard core with straw bales, leaves, grass clippings, or old twigs. You can use one or a combination of these materials.
Fill the remainder of the core with a mixture of topsoil, compost, and potting soil. This ditch looks like a mound in the middle of the garden and needs to be watered thoroughly to keep the plants hydrated throughout the gardening season.
Gardening with Ruth Stott
Ruth Stout's gardening is akin to back-to-Eden gardening. The idea behind this type of gardening is to cover all bare soil with organic mulch, which eventually breaks down into the ground and adds nutrients. Keeping the soil covered has several benefits, such as reducing erosion and suppressing weed growth.
When you garden with RuthStout, you cover your entire garden with a thick layer of hay. You put all the plants in your garden with hay around them. Other methods use wood chips or compost, and for these methods to be effective, you must make sure the layer is four to six inches deep.
Use this method to help fill up your loft bed quickly!
add peat moss
If you go to any gardening store, you will find large bags of peat moss. Sphagnum moss is acidic, so you have to be careful not to add too much to the soil unless you are growing acidophilic plants like peppers, rhododendrons or sweet potatoes.
However, adding peat moss to your soil is a great way to eliminate buying extra bags of potting soil or topsoil.
homemade compost
I can't think of a better garden addition than homemade compost, which is free if you make it at home. Bagged compost is expensive; it's like gold in your garden, but making it at home takes time and scraps from your home.
If you want to cheaply fill your raised bed with compost, you need to start composting a year before building the bed. Compost takes 6 to 12 months to develop, so you have to plan. You'll add ingredients like grass clippings, kitchen scraps, newspaper, chopped leaves, and more.
add compost
Do you have chickens or other farm animals? Turn their waste into compost for your garden.
You must always avoid adding fresh animal manure to your garden. Manure has a lot of nitrogen in it, and if you plant too quickly it will burn your plants and kill them. The best manure comes from chickens, cows, horses, sheep, rabbits, and goats. Never use dog, cat or human feces as this waste contains bacteria.
Ideally, you'll be composting your manure for at least a year, so take the time to plan that. However, since animals produce a never-ending waste, this is the perfect way to fill up a raised bed cheaply. Finally, let the animals save you some money.
bulk purchase of soil
A few years ago, I gave up buying bags of soil. It adds up too quickly when you need to fill up several garden beds for over $3 (sometimes closer to $5 a bag).
This is where buying soil in bulk comes into play. Many garden stores and local nurseries offer great discounts if you buy your soil by truck or yard. This is a more affordable option than individual bags.
add aeration material
No matter which of the above tricks you use to fill raised beds cheaply, you'll still need to add material to your garden beds to promote good ventilation. Aeration allows proper air flow throughout the soil, allowing water to reach the roots and avoiding soil compaction.
You don't want to add too much aerating material, as this will make the soil unable to hold moisture. Try materials like perlite, pumice, lava, or gravel.
How much soil is needed to fill a raised bed?
After deciding how to fill a raised bed cheaply, you have to figure out how much soil you need to fill the raised bed. The first step is to measure your beds, which you will know if you build or buy them. Multiple measurements must be taken for each measurement to obtain the cubic feet of soil that fill the raised bed.
For example, if your garden bed measures 8'x4'x1', you will need 32 cubic feet of soil to fill the bed. You should buy more as the soil tends to settle and gaps may eventually appear.
