What is the best dirt for a raised vegetable bed?

I have finally convinced my dh that we need to forget the darn clay and start a raised
vegetable garden.
The clay eats anything you give it and still is so very hard to work.
We have recently used a very nice triple mix in our new flower beds that are in a raised (3ft) train garden and the plants are comming up great. Would this type of soil be suitable for
the vegetable bed also?
Thanks
mrsrjjw

This is not an answer to the raised bed question, but a suggestion about the clay, if you have a section of clay that you would like to try to play with.

When I was in Maine we had a section of clay that was about 20' X 20'. Not huge, but the location was perfect for - well anything. Good sun, good drainage, etc. Problem is, it was clay.

My father thought about it, and cut some troughs into the clay, about 2' deep or so. Basically a deep plow attachment on a rototiller to create the troughs. He filled the troughs with sawdust and planted potatoes in them.

The potatoes grew and seemed to thrive. They didn't have very many potato bugs, so we knew that they were healthy, and the sawdust didn't have very many weeds in it because it was sawdust. At harvest time, the plants were nice and large, and we thought we might get a few potatoes and nothing else.

We were slightly off.

We ended up with about 10 potatoes per plant, and each one was HUGE. We cracked one open, thinking it would be hollow, but it was solid all the way through. Each potato could feed four people on average, was tasty, tender, and just amazing. We got bushels of them out of the sawdust, and best of all, they were easy to harvest because the sawdust was nice and loose.

At the end of the year, we covered with manure, and tilled the sawdust into the ground.

We grew nothing but potatoes, using this, in that garden for about 15 years, each time tilling the sawdust in and adding more manure after harvesting enough potatoes to feed our family and half the city. Today, that patch of clay is some of the richest, darkest, humusy soil that you have ever seen, and grows some rhubarb that has amazingly thick and heavy stalks, not to mention anything else that my father feels like throwing in there.

This is probably not a good answer to the raised bed, but if you have a small area that you are willing to experiment with, this might be a fun way to get potatoes that are to die for.

Thanks so much for your input and ideas, If I was going to plant a large bed again I would try your methods. We have been in this location for over 30 years now and the "veggie garden" area is a mess, no matter how much compost, manure or triple mix we have added over the years it is still a rotten area to grow anything in...lol. and I am too old now to start in another area. I think this 12' x 12' raised bed will be just the right size for our needs since it is only the 2 of us now. I plan on planting just a few tomatoe plants (beefsteak) some pepper plants and swiss chard, maybe some carrots and radishes also..we shall see how energetic I am.
Joyce

We lived in Houston some years ago on clay that was just awful. Several seasons of tilling in rice hulls, stable "leavings", and spent hops from a brewery converted it into terrific soil. We also tilled in gypsum on the advice of a local nursery. If you have a tiller and bulk organic material available, you might consider filling a raised bed with a mix of your native clay and LOTS of organics.

I'm sure the material you currently use for your flowers would work well, but a raised garden of any size at all would take a great deal of it & it might get to be a little pricey.

Frank

(edited for afterthought)


This message was edited May 13, 2008 4:34 PM

http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/f/strawbale/all/

I found this forum in the DG community, and was completely fascinated. I'm wondering if there is some data there that might help with your raised beds. After all, hay is all organics and you might have some good luck using the hay to create a growing area that will continue to rot into compost through the winter.

I want to bring to your attention those folks are using STRAW not hay. You need to ask about that since hay normally is loaded with weed seed and I'm sure you have plenty of your own. LOL

I was very interested to read your story about using sawdust and manure to get great potatoes. Usually we rotate the area every 3 years, so as not to have to deal with disease issues. Interesting you could do the taters that long without problems. Wonder if it was properties in the sawdust that kept the possibility of disease to a minimum.

Doh! Straw! I'm sorry. I put the wrong word in there.

I have a feeling that it was a combination of the sawdust keeping disease at a minimum, combined with the fact that we loaded up with manure every year, so there was more than enough replenishment on the soil. Normally, in any other garden that dad did, he rotated crops religiously (and yes, every seven years did the buckwheat groundcover and rest the ground thing). However, the clay was an experiment, so he was able to see how far it would go.

Straw can be found at Heiden Feed store on Steubner Airline north of 1960. Straw is otherwise surprisingly difficult to find. Note that the straw I got this year does have some straw seeds in it which have come up. Fortunately the tomato plants are tall enough to shade most of that out.

If you should choose to use hay, get horse hay, not cow hay. I've used horse hay often and have not had a weed problem from it.

Frank