How to Make DIY Inexpensive Raised Bed Soil & How to Fill it Quick & Cheap / Raised Bed Garden #6

there it is all right hi everyone welcome back to  the raised bed garden series when you're growing   and planting in your raised beds soil can be your  biggest investment so today we're going to show   you how to make your own diy soil mix so you can  save a ton of money we're also going to show you   how to fill your raised bed quick and simple again  saving money on soil and saving time now it's been   a busy week here at cali cam we leveled out our  workspace we installed some simple edging and   we also decided to add a second level to the  raised bed and it was really really simple but   first we got to ask why did we do that i wanted  to plant vegetables that have deeper roots   and the taller raised bed will accommodate that  and another thing that's really important jerry   is that with a taller bed it's much easier  access so you don't have to bend over quite as   much it's easier on your back and your knees so  i really like the look of it and really quickly   here's how we did it we just built an identical  raised bed from what we did last time but come   on in here and i'll show you what we did for  support we just added a 2 by 4 18 inch piece   and just did it for additional support all the  way around the horn we've got our corner braces   here for support and one in the middle so it  holds the two levels together it makes it super   sturdy it will hold the weight of all the soil  that we're going to add today in the raised bed   now when you're figuring out where to place your  raised bed in your garden you want to put it in   a place that gets at least six to eight hours  of sun so in the northern hemisphere you want   to face your raised bed to the south that's  where it's going to have the most sun exposure   so that's what we've done here and what we're  going to do first is we're going to line the   bottom of our raised bed with cardboard and the  reason for that is it's going to help prevent the   weeds from poking through any weeds that do poke  through will be smothered out by the cardboard   so that's what we're going to do first  and when you're building a raised bed   like i mentioned earlier in the video  soil is going to be your biggest expense   now when you fill your raised bed with all  bagged soil you're going to spend a ton of money   but you can really cut down on the money that you  spend by making your own diy soil mixes and by   doing a little filling trick for your raised beds  which we're going to show you in just a moment so over time the cardboard will break down adding  more organic matter to the soil and help keep the   weeds out we're just putting the cardboard  all the way to the edge as much as possible okay jerry i think that's looking pretty good  that's good yeah okay now instead of filling   our entire raised bed with soil we're going to  do something called the quick and thrifty fill   when you have a lot of raised beds to fill and a  very big raised bed like this one this is a really   good idea so what you do is you fill the bottom  third or half or so of the raised bed with organic   material you might have around your yard we just  trimmed a whole bunch of these trees last week   so we have tons of tree branches and leaves  basically put whatever organic material you have   around your yard maybe you pull out some plants  from the garden you can throw those in there   pretty much anything that's not diseased or  pest infested fill the bottom of the bed and   then we're going to put our soil in just  a moment and this is just one option that   you can do i have other filling methods in my new  book The First Time Gardener Raised Bed Gardening   it will break down over time and add organic  matter to your garden bed which is always a plus   so we're putting all these leaves and branches  to good use now i'm going to get in here and   kind of spread it around kind of flatten it down  just a bit this reminds me of lucy and uh ethel   when they were making wine kind of like the grape  stomping thing right yep fill in the corners here   a little bit now that we have our raised bed  filled with our leaves and our branches and   our sticks it's time to talk about soil now that's  one of the beauty of raised beds is you can fill   it with your own diy soil mix that's nutrient  dense you want your soil to have good aeration   good moisture retention and some really good  healthy nutrients in it so today we're going   to do our own diy mix it's the keep it  simple and thrifty mix from my new book   and jerry we've got a bunch of soil over here  that we're going to actually get started with   let's do this why don't we take everyone over  to where we kept the soil we don't ever tell   anyone about this spot or show it on camera  very much but you know what let's take you   behind the curtain a little bit here and see you  may have noticed these cans in all of our videos   actually that's where we're keeping  our soil so where did this come from   this when we empty out garden beds or empty out  containers i put all my extra soil in these bins   never throw it away soil is going to be your most  valuable resource in your garden and when you're   filling your beds you can save a lot by using your  own topsoil from your yard so you can dig up soil   that maybe you have spots where you have extra  soil extra container soil this is what we're   going to start with so muscle man's going to  pull these over here and we're going to start   filling our raised bed so the first thing that  you need when you're doing soil is some topsoil   you can also save a ton of money by checking  around at local landscape companies where you live   and buying soil in bulk you can save a ton of  money that way so first we're going to add some   of this top soil to our garden bed that's  ingredient number one in our soil recipe   so we're just gonna dump it in oh that's  the plan okay and we're gonna add some   extra nutrients in just a moment so the top  soil here is gonna form the base of our mix   and i'm just gonna start scooping it in i'm  gonna layer in nutrients in just a moment   so like i said if you've got an area in your  garden where maybe it's an empty spot and you have   some soil that you can dig up you can definitely  start with that or get some garden soil in bulk   from a local landscape company definitely don't  want to use all bagged soil i mean you can   it's definitely more convenient but it's  also very very costly one two three lift while jerry's getting more soil i'm going  to grab our Hoselink retractable hose   and water down the soil as we fill the bed  that way the soil has the moisture it needs   the plants will get off to a good start once  we get everything planted just pull this out here we go so i'm just going to mix the water in  here so all the soil gets fully saturated   i'm going to keep on watering adding soil until  our bed is full spread this out a little bit starting to look like a garden yeah this is going to be really nice yeah at this point i don't really want to get in and  step on my soil because i don't want to compact it   not to be nice and loose and fluffy that's  one of the beautiful things about raised   beds is you're filling it with fluffy soil  so it really helps cut down on the weeds too and the fluffiness is what gives your plants and  the soil good aeration the roots need to breathe   so you get lots of good harvests now we're about  halfway up right to the bed here is that about   what you were after yeah about what we're after  good we want to fill it about three quarters of   the way with your top soil or your bulk soil  mix then we're going to add in some nutrients you know what i always say crumbly brownie mix so   you can see right now it's  just a little bit too dry just a little bit more moisture in here  now i'm not going all the way down in   with my pitchfork because i don't want  to pull up all the leaves and the sticks   so i'm just going about halfway in and then just  kind of flipping it over all right we pulled out   all the soil we have around the garden and we're  just going to dump it all in all good topsoil   look at those leaves in there it's looking good  we're emptying out some of our old containers okay   ooh i see words no worms that's good always a good  sign so we're basically filling our raised bed for   free with soil that we already had we're going  to add in our second ingredient in just a moment   but that was not very expensive so  this is definitely a very thrifty fill we'll drive here so you should really just save  all your old leaves and all your old good soil   right definitely you have the space for it save  it you can reuse it i mean that totally saved   us money here oh so much money so we probably  would have taken us maybe one truckload full   from the landscape company which the last time  i got a truckload full of soil it was around   forty dollars we've got our raised bed filled  about three-fourths the way full with this nice   beautiful topsoil it is gorgeous it sure is and  now it's time to add the good stuff so the second   ingredient in our diy soil mix is compost now if  you have enough of your own homemade compost you   can definitely add that i don't have enough most  people probably don't so we actually grabbed some   chicken manure compost from the garden center  and chick manure is great to add in as long   as it's fully composted you don't want to add  fresh chicken manure because it's too hot it's   too high in nitrogen and it's going to burn your  plants so we're going to top this garden bed off   with our compost and this is  going to add good structure   good aeration to our soil and also add some  beautiful nutrients to help grow our plants   definitely smells like manure it definitely does  but heck that kind of enhances the experience   let's just say and maybe one of these days  we're gonna have our own chickens to make our   own chicken manure so we're gonna dump in our last  few bags of compost here and when you're filling   your raised beds you do want to make sure that  you fill it all the way up to the top get it as   full as you can because the soil does settle over  time and the leaves and sticks that we put in in   the bottom are going to break down which will make  your soil level sink just a little bit lower it's   full as we've got materials for we used about 10  bags of compost these bags are one cubic foot the   brand that you get really doesn't matter just get  whatever compost is available at your local garden   we've got our top soil in here we've got our  compost the third ingredient we're going to   add to our raised bed mix are worm castings now  worms are always a welcome sign in the garden   and worm castings are just a fancy name  for worm poop so here i'm throwing in   some of the vermisterra worm castings i'm  going to add two bags to my garden bed   and worm castings add great beneficial bacteria  and microbes to your soil help your plants be   healthy and help fend off pests and diseases and  they are a great addition to our raised bed mix   worm castings also help improve the soil structure  improve drainage yet hold on to moisture so it's   a really good component to add to your raised bed  mix and besides that there's teeny tiny worm eggs   in the worm castings so eventually you're  going to have brand new worms in your soil too   our garden bed is full it's looking  really good it's smelling nice and earthy   and i want to show you guys about the moistness  that your soil should be so we've watered it down   and you want it to be about like a crumbly brownie  mix like this is here when you squeeze it you   want just a few drops of water to come out this is  just just right so if your soil is too moist add a   little bit more dry leaves or something dry to it  if it's not moist enough just add some more water   so here i'm just going to go ahead and smooth  out the soil so it's nice and even on the top   and we are almost ready to plant this baby  which we're going to do on another video   so make sure you do subscribe stay tuned we're  going to have lots more garden videos to come   we're going to be building some trellises planting  this baby up it's going to be a lot of fun the   raised bed garden series is just getting started  it's so much fun to see this project come to life   we worked really hard at this so far yeah it's  been really fun to see this develop and come along   now we haven't talked much about what's going to  happen in this space yet but i'll tell you this   the view is just gorgeous right here the garden  we're not down here a lot to just sit and enjoy   i could get used to this definitely we'd  show you guys but there's a lot of camera   gear all over the place we had a really  exciting week this week my new book The   First Time Gardener Raised Bed Gardening  released and grab yourself a copy there's   tons of details in here on how to grow and  raise beds you're definitely going to want   to have this as a reference guide and also grab  my new raised bed kitchen garden seed collection   because we're going to be planting plants from  this seed collection in this garden bed in just   a few weeks and you can get 20% off right now  with the code "letsgrow" it's a book release sale   and that sale will run until monday april  18 2022. so grow along with us comment below   let us know if you're growing your raised beds  if you're going to build this raised bed for   yourself in your own backyard we can't wait to  read your comments thanks so much for watching

Channel: CaliKim29 Garden & Home DIY

Views: 407,446

Keywords: raised beds, DIY inexpensive raised bed soil mix, easy raised bed, how to build raised bed, raised bed gardening, how to fill a raised bed for cheap, raised bed gardening for beginners, fill a raised bed, raised garden bed, raised bed garden, raised bed soil, raised garden beds, raised bed garden soil, raised garden bed ideas, how to plant a raised bed garden, raised bed layout, how to grow in raised beds, calikim, how to build an easy raised garden bed, diy raised bed garden

Id: 7R7E6cEdZaA

Length: 13min 55sec (835 seconds)

Published: Sun Apr 17 2022