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| I am building a raised bed out of concrete blocks stacked 2 high. I am considering laying the first 8 inches or so with newspaper and adding 6 inches of top soil to that. Will I run into any problems with this method?
Also, what would serve as a good winter crop in this kind of bed. I'm considering lettuce and/or broccoli. |
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| Why are you considering such a thick layer of paper? Do you want to cut the costs of bought soil, create a raised bed for accessability...? I imagine paper 8 inches thick would be nearly the depth of a block and you'd have major issues with it preventing drainage, root penetration and all sorts. While it will eventually break down, that quantity could cause issues for many years. Without knowing your reasons for building a raised bed, I'll make a few random suggestions that might be irrelevant! Bear in mind, I don't use synthetic amendments in my garden. Don't underestimate the value of your native soil. Stones can be sieved out, but the minerals in actual soil are vital to plants. Organic matter is also vital. I'd build the beds' soil up over time, rather than trying to get it to an arbitrary 2 blocks high. Make sure to leave at least 2-4 inches at the top for mulch. Unless you're in a select few areas, having raised beds will make for some irrigation challenges and thick mulch will help a lot. MHO and I'll be very interested in replies to your question. |
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| Yes, I want to build a raised bed this high for accessibility and also for asthetics. I'll try to post a picture later. I already have the bed in place. I also have a large amount of news print that I need to do something with. And I did not want to buy that much dirt. I figured this might be a way to cover all of those concerns. Here is my fuller story.... I built the beds about 6-8 weeks ago. I started shredding the paper and mixing it with grass clippings. I've piled the 4'X10' bed 16" high or so a few times and the mixture breaks down very quickly. Ideally, I would like to just keep doing this, but shredding that much paper is very time consuming. My office paper shredder revolted. lol My original plan was to fill the bed with this experiment, until grass cutting season was over, and mulch the top for the winter. The bed is in a high visibility area and the exposed processing compost didn't prove very atractive. Last week our walk-in freezer went out. I buried a large garbage bag of bread, hash browns, and frozen vegetables under the grass/paper. I now have about half the bed pretty full of "stuff." I am wondering where I should take this project from here. I'm open to suggestions. Thanks for your input. |
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- Posted by belgianpup Wa/Zone 7b (My Page) on Wed, Oct 5, 11 at 20:09
| That doesn't sound too bad. Your first posting seemed to indicate you were placing a solid mass of sheet paper in the bottom of the bed. A solid mass of anything, esp without some air, is something to avoid. The largest mix of materials will provide the largest amount of nutrients. Toss some native soil into the mix -- Feijoas is right, it has nutrients, too. Leaves, livestock manure, weeds are all good. If you care to invest in a bale of straw, place a thin layer of it (fluffed) on the top of the current layer for neighborhood aesthetics. When you add more materials, just add another thin layer of straw. Sue |
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| All the stuff will eventually compost and your raised bed will be half empty. |
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