New veg beds

stooge

Hi,

I have built a few wooden frame raised veg beds using lengths of 9x2 rough cut timber. These beds are curerently empty and lying flat on my lawn. I have a couple of questions if someone could help or give opinions:

1) Will 9inches be enough to allow me to grow deep root veg such as carrots etc? If not how far do I have to dig into the lawn?

2) Is there any sense putting the beds in now and filling with top soil compost mix or should I store the beds in the garage and wait until spring?

3) If I fill them now what could I plant? are there any herbs that could be planted now?

4) Any recommendations for non toxic wood perservative for the timber?

Thanks for your help,

Stooge

wait4me

If this was me; and I was not planning on using that piece of lawn again, I would put the raised beds into place and turn the sod of the lawn and fit the bed with topsoil etc. Winter is a great time for breaking down soil. You could get some lettuces sown now that might cropbefore winter sets in. I might consider planting some cabbages for overwintering. But that's me....

stooge

Hi, thanks for the advice. I suppose tehre is no harm in having the lawn dug and the ebds filled for winter even if tehre is a limited amount of stuff I can grow now. when you say turn the sod of the lawn is there not a need to dig down into the soil to allow for rooting?

wait4me

I would dig the sod out by spade (about 12 inches of a dig) and break it up. By digging you will be going down into the soil. When you back fill with your 9 inches of topsoil you should really have about 21 inches of broken soil. Plant up something for the winter and the frost will break the soil up better... Frost :eek: