A Gardeners Forum Forums General Discussion The Food Garden Forum Vegetable Gardening Getting Started

Going to remove sod from an area in my back yard and build a couple of raised beds, along the lines of this : Raised Beds

I am a total newbie to this with no knowledge of what to do. Before I build the raised beds, should I till the soil they will be built on? And once the beds are constructed, what should I mix in with the existing soil to fill up the beds?

And can I plant this spring or won't the soil be ready to be planted?

Thanks for the help! I am really excited to get started.

If you remove the sod. Just rough up the soil a bit there.
They sell garden soil at walmart . Fill them up with that. No need to mix the bottom with the top.

You can plant veggies an flowers seeds soon as frost quits.
April isnt too early for onion sets or radish or peas , carrots an parsnips.
They can go in soon as you want in april.
Also strawberries.

Annuals you can start in pots on your porch 6 to 8 weeks before the last frost.
Ihave lots of annuals started inside, but end of april is a good time to start annual seeds on your porch.

Hope this helps
dodge

Yep! I agree with Dodge.. I feel ya bripow! I am pretty new myself with last year being my first garden.. You have come to the right place these guy are awesome! Welcome!

Hi and welcome

You can mix the soil if you'd like, saves on cost of buying all bagged soil.

Some people build raised beds because they don't want to deal with weeding from the grass underneath, so they build the beds high enough to support the root system of what they are planting. If that is the case you can cover the bottom of the raised bed with newspaper and put the soil on top..in a year or so it will kill the grass under neath and then you can till it deeper for different crops another year.