The document provides instructions for preparing soil in a raised bed garden. It discusses evaluating the existing soil type, which can be sandy loam, clay loam or loam. It also describes adding organic matter like compost or manure to improve soil structure and nutrient content. A key recommendation is to turn over the existing soil, break up any clumps, and thoroughly mix in amendments to create a friable soil suitable for growing vegetables.

1. Soil preparation
• Evaluating the soil in
your raised bed and the
organic matter you are
using to top your bed
up with.

2. Raised bed soil
• The base of the raised
bed will sit on a certain
soil type. As indicated.
• Most soils are loams
which are a mixture of
sand, silt and clays
organic matter and air.

3. Loams
• Loams are named
according to the main
textural class present.
• The 3 broad groups are
• Sandy loams
• Loams
• Clay loams

4. preparing your base soil
• Firstly mark out your bed
and then turn the soil
over with a spade or
shovel.
• Check the depth of the
soil. Ideal at this stage is if
the soil is dark, friable,
and 30-40cm deep.
• If not fork over the
bottom of the trench or
double dig.

5. Evaluate your soil texture
• A simple way to check • You can also use a feel
soil texture is to test.
moisten the soil and • Soils of different
form it into a ball or textures also feel
worm shape and then different .
press it with your • Sands feel gritty
thumb.
• Clays feel smooth and
• The way the soil slippery, and
deforms tells you its
texture. • Loams sit in between

6. Sandy loams
• Sandy loams don’t hang
together well and wont
easily form a ball or
break up easy when you
try to roll them into a
worm shape.
• They don’t hold water
well and are normally
low on nutrients

7. Clay loams
• These soils are yellow to
brown, they form a ball or
worm well and when you
press them you leave a
clear imprint of your
thumb
• Clays are high in nutrients
but these soils bake dry in
summer and flood in
winter because of their
fine pore spaces

8. loams
• These are the best soils
for gardening on they
are made up of
• 40% sand, 40% silt and
15% clay and 5%
organic matter.
• When you roll and
squeeze them they
deform but don’t break
apart

9. Soil structure
• This describes the way • A simple shatter test
your soil hangs will tell you what sort of
together. structure your soil has.
• An ideal soil structure • Take a spade full of soil
for growing vegetables and drop the back of
is one that is described the spade onto the
as friable. This means it ground, the soil on top
breaks up easily into a will beak up, shatter.
crumbly form . • Different soils behave
differently.

10. Shatter test sandy loam
• Sands are loose and
collapse when you try
to cultivate them
• Note the way the block
of soil has broken up
and collapsed

11. Shatter test clay loam
• Clays are tight and
blocky and are hard to
break up and cultivate
• Note how they kept
their shape and hardly
broke up when dropped

12. Shatter test loam
• Loams break up well to
form a friable soil which
drains well but holds
sufficient air and water.
• Note the crumbly
friable nature of the soil
after it was dropped

13. Adding to your raised bed.
• The advantage of raised
beds is that you can easily
add
• Topsoil
• Compost
• Potting mix
• Dried manures
• Or any combination of
the above to improve on
the soil you already have

14. Adding compost 1
• Compost is ready for use
when
• it has broken down and
you cant tell what the raw
materials were that made
it up
• It is a dark colour
• It is crumbly and full of
worms.
• This is home made, why
would you buy it when
you can make your own!!

15. Adding compost 2
• There are many types of
commercial composts
available for purchase.
• I Like Mushroom compost
which has a wonderful
spongy structure.
• Add all composts thinly
and regularly working
them into the soil with a
garden fork.
• DON’T SNIFF them.

16. Adding Topsoil
• You can top your bed up
with extra top soil. But
it is hard to get hold of
and expensive.
• Make sure you break it
up well and thoroughly
mix it into your existing
soil.
• Check that it is weed
free

17. Adding manures
• You can use dried animal manures to top your raised
bed up. Like using compost light regular additions
worked regularly into the soil gives the best results.