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[Clansgian AT wmconnect.com]

> >Since what you are doing is composting in situ I assume you mean that
> 'hauling in compost and piling it on the spot' means that the compost
> is already composted elsewhere. Or did I miss something here.

Yes.  The MO of a lot of gardeners is that they have compost bins or piles 
and transport the product of those bins to the garden as wanted.  Although 
that works pretty well, there is a very great advantage to making compost 
heaps right where you intend to have gardening beds.

You can indeed haul in compost, pile it up (with or without sides) and grow 
things in that .... and with good results.  But the dynamic bed that 
extends 18" to 24" below ground and the same amount above ground is a whole 
different affair.

I have been a robber of manure piles for some time.  Here is a phenomenon I 
have observed:  where piles are not turned the most profound composting 
takes place within 10" of good air exchange ... that is .... on the surfaces. 
  
When someone invites me to help myself to an old manure pile, I always find 
that the outer 10" or so, top and sides, is finished compost and deeper in 
the pile, even if it is years old, is only partially decomposed.

This past week my father built a raised bed out of timber for my mother and 
I took the truck to a horse barn to get compost with which to fill it.  It 
was a pile they only used when the road was too muddy to take the manure to 
the fields (because the way to this spot was slate and does't get muddy) so 
it had had only a spreader full of manure on it two or three times a month 
for more than six years.  It was over a slope facing a dappled south.  I 
loaded the top few inches into muck buckets and filled the truck with those 
(had 
to hike up and down the slope to get t he manure).  It was as loose and 
black as coffee grounds, but 8" or so below that it was damp and brown and 
looked as if it had been dumped there last week.

On another horse farm I used to go remove the top 10" of an old manure pile 
until I got out of the black and into the brown.  Then I'd come back every 
two weeks and get another 10" of black from the same spot.

My point is this:  A bed which has been dug into the ground (in its youth) 
has a much more intimate ground contact that one where material has just 
been dumped on the surface.  A bed in which not only the top is exposed to 
the 
air and gets disturbed during routine cultivation ... but also the sloped 
sides are exposed and cultivated, has much more exposure to the air and the 
biological activity is taking place at a much more accelerated pace than if 
it 
is enclosed by sides.  That's the payoff for the "inconvenience" of not 
having sides and it is a significant payoff.

I pipe up about this whenever raised beds are brought up in case people 
harbor the notion that the purpose of the siding is to hold up the bed.  The 
beds hold up fine without it.   If you need sides to hold it up, it's pretty 
poor stuff to begin with.

Rob mentioned using goat litter as the basis for the bed.  I can tell you 
from having done it that if you just pile up the litter in a bed shape with 
no physical sides, it will stay put, can be planted upon immediately, and 
will turn into finished soil much more quickly than if it had sides blocking 
the air.  Yes, you get your max benefit after years of managing the same bed 
this way, but you also get immediate benefits.

James