Preparing the raised beds for planting

[anna38anna]

Hi there,
We built new raised beds last spring, and had someone help us fill them with the right mix of base stones and soil, compost and chicken manure. Our veg and potatoes did really well, we learned a lot, and we so enjoyed our first year of gardening. Now we want to prepare the beds for planting (colder here in NI, so we won't plant much in March). Last year we had horrendous weeds, the chicken manure will have helped them along too, I assume. I'm cleaning the last of the winter weeds this morning, and would manure the beds too if it's the right time? What's best to do as a weed preventative, if anything? Organic would be great.

Realising it may be some time before I graduate past gardening novice!

OK, the answer is: it depends what you are going to plant in each bed.

Heavy feeding crops will need manure by the bucketload. If it's not well rotted, you might want to put it on now so it has a bit of time to work in.

Onions, carrots, root crops won't need any manure, but you might want to add a small amount of compost

Nitrogen fixers like peas and beans will need a small amount of manure only.

If the ground is clear of veggies or anything you want to keep, you can cover it with weed sheeting to warm it up and to stop anything germinating. Once the soil is uncovered for planting, though, you'll need to start weeding! Try to do little and often and keep on top of it - believe me, it's much easier than doing a huge job occasionally. Weeds are worst at the start of a plot: you will probably find you still have a fair bit to do this year, but not quite as much as last year, and next year should be easier again.

Think you're wise to wait on planting out - you often get more growing time in the autumn than you think, and you can lose things really easily if it's too cold.

Yes, to previous reply. I guess you probably know it's best to 'rotate' crops, so to have different things in each bed from last year, if you can. But that may depend how many beds you have, and how many crops.

Soil should be in good condition I would guess, so weeding should be easy, and they should just pull out. (We have almost solid clay, and need a pick axe for weeding!)

Too much manure results in lots of green growth but can actually stop things flowering and fruiting, you need potassium for that (manure is rich in nitrogen). Root crops need larger amounts of phosphorus, so personally if they have had alot of manure last year they may not need any this.

Legumes only fix nitrogen if you dont crop the peas or beans, recent studies show that only those used as green maures and being dug in before peas or beans develop actually fix nitrogen.

Bes thing as weed preventative, is add fresh home made compost on top, and keep hoeing or pulling the weeds out between now and planting time, and disturb the surface as little as possible, to stop old weed seeds from germinating.

Thanks for the great replies. I've just started a list of what I'd like to plant this year, and will rotate the crops except last year's strawberry plants which are the only thing left in the beds.

We're moving potatoes out to a new patch of ground we've cleared for this year, they did really well in the raised beds and were beautifully easy to dig in the new soil, but we'd like to plant a bigger quantity. So we'll have three beds of 3mx1.5m for vegetables, like spinach, beetroot, courgettes, onions, carrots. That's about as much as I can take good care of, though very tempted to get a polytunnel for my 40th instead of a nice handbag :) There's just something about being cosy out of the (coastal) wind, pottering with tomato plants, I loved that in my parents' garden.

So I'm away now to make sense of which plants will need potassium or anything else different. Thanks for all the advice.

Shovetheholly, what would be done heavy feeding crops in need of lots of manure? Just so I can make note of that. We have hens now so have some fresh from them, but used organic chicken manure pellets last year.