Hello! My name is Bethany and I grow things in my rooftop container garden in Chicago. In this video, I’ll show you how I refresh my raised beds and get them ready for planting this Spring!
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8 Comments
Really helpful info! Going to try that with my grow bags.
I like your amendments. But I'm concerned they aren't being put in the root zone. However, if you've been doing this for years and its working then I must be worrying needlessly. The only plants I've cut off and left the roots were tomatoes and frankly…the roots didn't breakdown over the winter. Smaller plants are much more likely to be amenable to this scenario I believe. I would also like to mention that I (on my large raised beds) add manure in the fall and compost in the spring. This makes a nice rhythm to the growing year and gives the winter season for the manure to break down to growing perfection.
Great share 👍 👌
I leave the roots in the soil all the time and they decompose nicely
I've left the roots of my plants in the containers, as many people suggested just leaving them in there. Not all of them broke down, the bigger, stronger parts, eg the stems of tomatoes and the thicker roots didn't, but the smaller ones did, and I feel like it didn't get compacted and hard, although I don't know what it would've been like if I didn't do that 😅 I think it also depend on the soil, which in my case was weird, as the bio/organic soil for growing vegetables was heavy and compacted in the pots, it was really bad 🤦♀️🤦♀️ but the all-purpose soil I've bought for a fraction of the price (that contains peat) is a lot better. I've emptied the pots into a big plastic tub (that was a round sleigh in its previous life 😂), picked out the big roots and plant debris, added perlite and cocopeat to it.
Hi my friend
I gotta get crackin on amending my raised beds.
I always leave the roots in my containers over winter. I do think help with soil compaction, but while some decay, they don't all. It really seems to depend on how thick the roots are. Good luck with those morning glories –I had an enormous area of them from a pot last year, and I just loved them. They didn't bloom until later summer, but I think that was because they didn't like the extra hot temps we had.