Preparing a new garden bed can be expensive to fill and often people wonder how to fill it with quality compost to feed their new plants. When preparing my new raised garden bed in my greenhouse I learnt about the Hüglekultur ( or lasagna ) method. Which is a rather large-scale gardening preparation but can be adapted to raised garden beds.
Preparing a new garden bed can be expensive to fill and often people wonder how to fill it with quality compost to feed their new plants. When preparing my new raised garden bed in my greenhouse I learnt about the Hüglekultur ( or lasagna ) method. Which is a rather large-scale gardening preparation but can be adapted to raised garden beds. The idea is to fill the bed with loads of accessible organic matter so that over time it continues to break down and feed your vegetables. So firstly you add decaying wood- so you are adding loads of beneficial fungi, mould and microorganisms to your new garden. We found ours laying on the forest floor on our local bush walk. The logs should be almost crumbly. The logs help with water retention which is great for raised garden beds.
Then I proceeded to add what I had on hand or could find easily;
• Fresh mulch
• Seaweed off the beach
• Freshly cut branches and leaves of our property
• A bucket of used coffee grinds
• Lawn clippings
• Homemade compost - almost not completely broken down
• Warm casting- brought in a bag from Bunnings
Once half filled with all this amazing free organic material, I topped it with store-bought compost so I can plant straight into this garden. With this method, you can load your garden bed up with anything you have on hand - even manure. For me, this was a great chance to tidy up my yard, cut back trees and gather leaf litter.
I would recommend this method when starting a new garden bed. Upon my research, I found using the Hüglekultur method in raised gardens meant the bed will have sufficient nutrients and no need for additional fertiliser for many years.