Raised bed gardening is possibly one of the best ways a gardener can make use of their spaces and soil. The method should be able to solve anything from unfertile dirt, limited working area to lack of gardening ideas. Let’s learn how to fill a raised garden bed cheap together right here!
How To Fill A Raised Garden Bed Cheap
Before you can attempt to fill a raised garden bed, we will let you in on a little clue: You are going to pull your hair out trying to figure out how much soil is going into a garden bed. Pull out a tape ruler and write down the measurements of the garden bed. After that, you can put the numbers into this formula:
Volume (cubic meter) = Length (meter) x Width (meter)) x Height (meter))
The volume is the amount of material you need for your garden bed to be up to its brim. If you happen to not buy enough material for the beds, you can always raise their floors up so the equation above rounds up to the material volume!
With that out of the way, here are five methods on how to fill a raised garden bed cheap!
1. Core Gardening:
Core gardening is exactly what it is: Forming a “sponge” area in the center of the bed for it to hold liquid inside. The “sponge” serves to provide moisture and hydration for plants in the two-feet radius.
Core gardening is a great planting method on how to fill a raised garden bed cheap, that allows you to spend way less on sprinkler and pest control. The core “sponge” can hold quite a lot of liquid all seasons long so you do not have to worry about your plants drying up. If you are not feeling too confident, you can place mulch on the surface of the soil to aid the “sponge” even more.
You will also have way less weeds than with usual planting. Since the core keeps moisture away from the plant bed’s surface, weeds cannot latch onto the soil and therefore cannot germinate. Combining core gardening with mulch will effectively drive away all weeds for good. Only the long-rooted plants you have placed will be able to reach the moisture.
This is the steps on how to build a core garden:
- Build the trench inside the core: Dig a trench around 20-30 centimeters deep and 30 centimeters down into the middle of the plant bed. You can definitely move the soil aside if it is bothering the digging process. It is a good idea to place some cardboard or newspaper down as the base of the garden bed.
- Fill the core: Fill the core with organic material that is already starting to decompose. If you do not have compost on the spot, you can always buy some old twigs or straw bales after having soaked them in water.
- Charge the core.
- Fill the bed with soil.
- Prepare for the next season.
2. Hugelkultur:
Hugelkultur is the method of placing a mass of rotting material underneath the soil. You can use twigs, logs, sticks and other decomposing organic materials you find around your garden. Hugelkultur is somewhat similar to core gardening, so they have near-identical advantages.
The method is simple: place a large sponge of compost underneath the soil for the plants to grow long roots. The only difference is that the compost layer will not need to be changed every season. If you keep it there long enough, you will have a batch of healthy soil, too!
Here is how to fill a raised garden bed cheap using the Hugelkultur method:
- Water the compost material and lay them down on the bottom of the garden beds.
- Cover the rest of the garden bed with the soil you have prepared.
- Choose the right timing to pump the compost layer with water again at the beginning of every season.
3. Ruth Stout:
Ruth Stout is a method of mulching the garden with spoiled hay and bringing dead soil back to life. Hay decomposes very fast, so the Ruth Stout method promotes mulching the garden with spoiled hay and building healthy soil quickly. Hay breaks down quickly, feeds the soil and does not require as much as you would with typical planting.
Cover the soil with a thick layer of compost or aged manure on top of the soil. You will not have to take out the grass or weeds before you get the manure in the soil, as the layer of compost should be able to snuff the life out of anything underneath it.
Final Thought
In this article, there are only five methods on how to fill a raised garden bed cheap. But in actuality, you will be able to find so many more ways people utilize their soil and space for growing crops and vegetables! Hope our article has provided you with the information needed on how to fill a raised garden bed cheap. Always be on the lookout for new ways to do things, and you will be a great gardener!
