- G'day, I'm Mark from Self sufficient Me. And in this video, I'm
not just gonna show you how to fill nine of these high sided raised garden beds on the cheap. Also, I'm going to give you a ton of tips on how to fill them with
a medium that is premium and will help you grow veggies,
right from the beginning, healthy, nutritious, and
thriving for many years to come. Let's get into it. (gentle music) (bird chirping) Out of the nine garden
beds, I've got four to go, I'll level with you, I don't
think I'm going to be able to fill them all in this video. There's just like too
much space there for me to manually fill in and
I've just finished leveling them off so speaking of
leveling that's the first tip, is to make sure you do get
them as level as possible. You might not be able to
get them perfectly level. Most of my garden beds have
sunk over time as well. These raised zinc ones, so
I wouldn't worry about that too much, I just worry
about growing veggies in my garden beds and
that's my main priority, looks isn't number one. And if you follow my videos for a while, you'd know that's quite true. And because I retrofitted
these garden beds over the old rotten one and
I needed, of course, the prong to be able to pull all that out, it was a fair job. It was a lot of uneven
ground and the existing soil was underneath these, which brings me to another tip or a point. Is it a good idea to use your old soil? And most of the time it is
because if you have done the right thing by your
veggie garden beds, and you've been improving the soil, you've been adding compost,
you've being adding manures that is turning into a
really good live soil. It's full of worms and
animals, bacteria, fungi, that has beneficial to plants. So it makes sense that if
you're replacing them with higher sided raised garden
beds that you use that soil on the top. However, if like in my
case, you've left that soil go a little bit, it's not too bad, but then it's too much of a hassle also, to try to get it back into those beds, because it's too much to move to one side or it's not quite worth it
cause the soil is not that good. Well, then you could just
simply use it at the base of those beds and keep all
those animals and worms, maybe that might've still been in that soil, lay those beds on top, like I have done. And then any excess throw
back into those beds. That way it's going to
save me time, in this case, it's going to save me fill. And it won't make much
difference to the final product because we're going to get to the soil and medium mix shortly. (upbeat music) Even the Kookaburra's are after the worms. That's one that I didn't get. Otherwise I would have
put it in the garden bed. Well, that's that done. It's hard yakka. And that's another tip that
I want to give you guys if you're willing and able, I
mean, willing, if you're able, maybe not that willing
because it's hard work shoveling dirt, I would say skip the Baca or the mini Digger, which a
lot of guys would be thinking. That would be an easier
way to go get a mini Digger and fill these beds up quick smart. A, you have to purchase that
or you have to hire that. And B, you're not getting the exercise. A lot of us as we get on a
bit and even younger people don't work out as much as we should, but this is a way to get a
workout in at the same time, improving your garden, so
don't shirk the hard work, think of it as a gym
workout and not as a chore or something that you should
pass off onto heavy machinery. The next thing I'm going to
put in is a composted down wood chip and the reason why
I want it to be composted down and I recommend you do
composted down and not fresh, is for two things, first
of all, if it's fresh, it will compost in your
beds and heat your beds up. You may or may not want that to happen. You might want to be
planting straight away. If you do, I would recommend
you don't put a raw or new chip into the base of these beds
and then top it with the soil because you're going
to get an extra hot bed and that might not be
good for the veggie roots for a month or so. And the second thing is
composted down wood chip is already turning into the good stuff and I've shown that in previous videos, so I won't go over that, if
you want to know about that, go to the, what happens
when you leave wood chip sit in a big pile, that video
will explain everything, the humus, for example,
but it's not just that. It's also the materials
won't sink as much. So when you top these
beds up with the soil, it's already composted
down, so you're going to get less sinkage, which means
you're not going to have to top these beds up or
have them sink too much in your first season of growing, which will help because you
don't want too much sinkage and starting to reach down
into the bed to harvest your veggies. Yes, it will sink over time, but not dramatically like
a new wood chip would. You're getting closer
to me, young fella, ah. Boo, anyway, let's get into the next stage of filling these beds,
most of the way to the top with wood chip. (upbeat music) No I'm just adding to the noise. What can I do, the rest of
the neighborhood is going off, I might as well be noisy too. (upbeat music) Lets finish this bed off
with some premium soil, just because you mix soil with a manure, doesn't turn it into an excellent or premium soil, in my opinion. And that's the other thing
you've got to be careful of. A lot of landscape supply
companies will mix their own soil, that you have to be very
careful about the home jobie who liked to save money
themselves by mixing their own soil at the back, and then selling it off to
the customer as premium soil, simply because they've got
some loamy, sandy, cheap soil, and then they've mixed
it with some chicken poop that they've got from
the local poultry farmer, or maybe the pony club. That type of thing is never
a very good mix of soil to put into your garden. And it's certainly not premium. What premium soil is, is soil that has been mixed
with a whole range of goodies. Yes, it can have some animal manure in it, but that's not overly important. The fertility of it coming from manures, or even artificial fertilizers
or synthetic fertilizers, which some will throw in
and call it that extreme or gold soil, you'd be better off putting your own fertilizer into a premium soil that you've purchased at
a lesser price than buying that other one that's been
mixed in with the manures. You'd be better off mixing
in your own manures, once you've got in your bed
and top dressing with a manure, maybe digging that in, then
getting the top level soil, because you're just paying
extra that you can do it a lot cheaper yourself. Your premium soil should in
general have a charcoal color. It's been mixed in with
some good composted down organic material. You should see bits of twigs
and small bits of stick, Ash, small rocks and
stones giving your soil the minerals it needs, it
shouldn't be too sandy or loamy. It shouldn't have a crust
on top of the surface. It shouldn't fall through
the fingers too easily when squeezed and if it's
a bit moist, it should hold together quite well, of course, it shouldn't be too wet and clay like, but it should hold together well enough without breaking apart too easily and being definitely too sandy. The guys that I get my soil from now, they actually get it made by
a third party who specializes in making soil for garden beds
and because they specialize in it and they are a
trusted brand, so to speak. And that's all they do, sure,
it might cost a little bit extra, but not a heck of a lot, but you know, you're
getting a quality product. Anyway, let's finish this job off. (upbeat music) You can see that I've raised
it up probably a few inches that's because I'm still
allowing for some sinkage, you're going to get sinkage,
anyway especially over time, all raised garden beds
sink, no matter what, even if you're full of them full of soil, because you're taking things out. You're using nutrients in the soil. You're pulling weeds and soil naturally compacts over time. That's why I give it
a little bit of leeway and rise it up before I put
the sugarcane mulch on top. I'll give a little bit of a
sprinkle of some fertilizer, maybe some blood and bone, and that'll give it a
bit of an extra punch for when I plant into that bed shortly. I wouldn't usually add too
much like heavy animal manure to this type of soil mix at this stage because it would probably
make it a bit too heavy. So this type of fertilizer,
like a blood and bone or something watered in is perfect. (upbeat music) And there you go, that's
six out of the nine done. I'll never got close to
finishing them all today, did I? But at least I gave you that one example. And of course you saw the other
ones in the video as well. And I hope you enjoyed this video. One last thing, now you might be saying, "Mark, you don't practice what you preach. Why didn't you use your
wheelbarrow to cart the dirt around and the mulch, that would
have given you more exercise" Well, all I can say to that is, A, I'm not a glutton
for punishment, right? So I will use the lawn mower
to pull the cart around. And B, the cart holds more
than my large wheelbarrow does so there are my excuses, but yes, if you want it to use a wheelbarrow and heave everything around, go for it, it's a pretty good workout. I just think that it might
have been a bit much for me. But anyway, I did a lot of
shoveling and I feel good for it. Thanks a lot for watching. Make sure you subscribe,
if you haven't already and share the video around. Bye for now.
