When Filling Your Raised Garden Bed with Soil, Overfill it!

In this episode, Bryan explains why you should overfill your garden bed with soil.
A quick, but very valuable piece of info!
Your garden bed houses your growing environment, so you’ll want to make sure you provide a great environment for your plants to thrive!

Intro

Hi everyone, this is Bryan Traficante from GardenInMinutes, and this is Episode 10 of Easy Growing! Today we’re going to be talking about soil depth in your garden bed, using our 2×2 Garden Bed as an example.

Plants Need the Soil Depth

Basically, whenever you fill up your garden bed with fresh soil the soil it’s very aerated and it will compress over time. But what you don’t want to do is have your soil or compress so that it’s below your garden bed boards. The reason being is that most garden beds are eight inches tall, just like ours. They’re designed that way for a reason. Having an 8 inch tall garden bed gives you roughly 8 inches of growing depth for your plants. Most plants need about 6 inches for the vast majority of their roots to grow into the soil to absorb nutrients and give stability to the plant. Some plants will root deeper. But the vast majority of what you need is about 6 inches deep. So, having 8 inches gives you a little extra wiggle room for the plant to anchor itself a little bit deeper.

Overfill Your Garden Bed to Start

If your soil compresses down below the top your bed, you’re basically reducing the amount of environment that your plant’s can grow in. So when you have your garden bed and you’re filling it up, make sure you’re filling it up about an inch or two up above the top your garden bed boards. You soil typically will compress an inch or two and if that’s the case, you’ll be flush with the top your garden bed boards, giving your plants about eight inches of growing depth.

Your Garden Grid will Thank You

Now besides filling your garden with soil all the way to the top so that way your plants have the best environment to grow in… You also want to fill your garden bed to the top with soil so your Garden Grid™ sits flush. If your Garden Grid™ is sitting on top of soil that’s been compressed below the top of your boards, it’s going to lean and not fit as well as it could. So go ahead and fill your garden bed all the way to the top. Your Garden Grid™ will sit flush and you’ll have a great environment for all of your plants to grow in!

Thanks! Comment What You Want to See Next

Alright! That’s it for Easy Growing Episode 10. Thank you all so much for watching. Please leave your comments and your feedback in the section below and we’ll see you next time!