Healthy soil and sustainable growing

[Gail Hoskisson Loper <loghillgail@msn.com>]

On 7/5/08 6:55 PM, "Liz" <liz@allslash.org> wrote:

> Just a personal story about permanent beds: I used to have a much
> larger garden, but my work was so time-consuming for several years
> that I cut way back, and part of the garden area got completely
> overgrown. I began renewing the neglected section this year, and
> converting the old ground level beds to raised beds.

I am a convinced and committed convert to raised beds.  I started building
them and growing in them when I lived in Moab.  The soil on my place there
was basically sand and river rock left after the creek nearby cut a new
channel a hundred years ago and my home was built on the old flood plain.
When I moved to Western Colorado my new husband knew it was a given that I
would want to move my raised beds AND the soil in them over here with me.
It caused a few raised eyebrows from family and neighbors who don't
understand that soil is not just dirt.

My beds range from 5 to 11 inches deep and they sit on about 6 inches of
native topsoil.  Down more than 6 inches into the native soil you find not
much but fractured sandstone.

I have never had permanent beds that were not raised beds. What I am curious
about, Liz is how you are converting your permanent beds to raised beds and
how deep or I guess a better way to ask it is how tall will the raised beds
be.  I would think that they would be wonderfully productive since you're
starting with greatly improved soil as a base.

Gail