I Filled This Raised Garden Bed With NO SOIL… 2 Years Later

So I've been trying to fill this garden bed for two years now. And before you say, Mark, why don't you just get on with it? What are your arms painted on? Hear me out. The rules were that I could only fill this high-sided raised garden bed with organic mixes from our own yard. Stuff like compost, mainly, potting mix. I was allowed to take that old potting mix that I'm not going to use anymore in a container from somewhere and put that into the garden bed as an extra cheat, if you like, to help me because you know how hard it is to make this much compost just for one garden bed when I've got a whole big garden to support. So I can't just put all my efforts into this one place. We've got the dog chasing a chicken at the moment. What are you doing, eh? Do you want to have a look in here and see how bad Daddy is done in filling this bed? I couldn't overly cheat on the potting mix either. It's not like I could somehow fill a hundred pots with potting mix and then go, oh, tip it into here and fill this up. This had to have been done from scratch because I wanted to demonstrate how long it could take to fill up a garden bed like this without any outside soil coming in, no bagged soil, no new potting mix, no landscaping supplies, ready-made soil, nothing like that. If you can remember a couple of years ago, I used straw bales and I topped it up with a bit of compost that I got and we grew potatoes in here to start off with. And over the last two years, I've been doing my best. Whenever I can, I've topped this bed up with compost. And if I've had any leftover old potting mix, I'd put it in here also. And at the same time, I needed to keep growing crops in here, which I did also. Even though it's only half full, we've been able to grow potatoes, pumpkins, coriander, tomatoes, kale. But I have to admit though, it's time to pump it back up again and get it to a decent height at least and get some serious composting going underneath. And I think the best way I can do that is with a heap of fresh organic matter and some heavy wood chip that might slowly break down. The bed won't sink as much. And that way, it'll also break down into a better mix underneath. Because from experience over this last 20 years, I've found that wood chip underneath compost and soil does break down quite nicely. And it does hold its shape. It breaks down to a beautiful mix, but it takes a bit longer. But before we do that, I've got to unload all of this soil. And also before I take this soil out, we've got here some coriander plants, some tomato seedlings. All these have just recently come up in this bed, probably from last season's crops. So I want to save these seedlings. Maybe we dig them out first and put them to the side, probably behind here. And then I will replant some of these coriander and tomato plants back into the bed once I've got it refurbished. So let's get into it. I probably won't save all these plants, but let's just dig down and keep a fair bit of soil with it and just put it over here. And they'll last for an hour or so or more as I refurbish this bed. And if I see them starting to wilt, I'll just throw a bit of water on them. They should be okay. And now let's get a couple of tomatoes. These are probably little mini tomatoes. These will be the everglades, which I do really like. I mean, look, coriander or cilantro, even just these small seedlings, we could just pop in a curry or just put in a salad. So I'm not going to waste them. I'm not going to dig them under. The tricky thing is where to put all the soil. So I've got a couple of carts, if I need. So I'll fill this one up, a wheelbarrow, and we'll see how we go for space. But I really have to take all this out and then fill the bottom at least half or three quarters even with organic waste. So I've got a wheelbarrow, a cart, and anything left over, I'll throw here on the ground on this blue tarp. And that should be plenty enough room for me to get all this dirt out so I can put it all back in later. Sometimes there's just no easy way of doing things, but it's good exercise. You know, as we dig down, you can see all the worms and it's really good-looking soil. Smells good. Lovely. It's a good mix. The only thing is there isn't any inorganic matter in it. So there's no rocks or gravel or anything like that natively in here. So the only thing that extra, I suppose I forgot to mention that I do add in, is a little bit of rock minerals. That's just a supplement, really. Most plants are used to growing in environments when it's not just organic matter. They're used to getting a little bit of extra minerals and vitamins from inorganic sources like rocks. You know, iron, magnesium, zinc, all that type of thing is important for plants. Only in trace elements. So that's why you can get away with a few handfuls of rock minerals. You know, purchase stuff to throw in there. Well, there's a change of plans. I've decided not to take all the soil out of this raised bed for three reasons. The first one is I'm buggered. I can't be bothered digging anymore. The second one is there's a lot of worms that are in there and I'm hesitant to dig them all out because I want to keep a lot of those worms in there and I'm thinking now, my strategy, if I've got some soil in the base of that bed and I put that organic matter in there, some old pumpkin waste, heaps of fresh organic matter and some of that wood chip in here, pile it up as much as possible and then put the rest of that soil, which is plenty of it, that I've dug out heaps. There's heaps on the other side as well on that tarp. If I can sandwich it, those worms and that extra soil making that organic matter sandwiched in between them should let that decay down faster and turn into a happy growing medium. That's the theory and I'm pretty sure it'll work. And the third reason is I've got logs in the base of this. I forgot to mention again, when I originally put these beds in, what I did was I used the Hugelkultur method with logs in the base and when I redone this bed and then two years ago started filling it with just organic matter to see how long it would take, I left those logs in there. I did make a video when I emptied this out and showed the logs after I think it was five or so years of being in the base of this Hugelkultur method. So if you want to see that video, go ahead and have a look at it. Plus, if you want to see the original video as well of me starting this project, check that out too. I'll leave those links below or I'll slot them in up here. But for now, what I've got to do is get all that organic matter, stuff it in here as hard as I can and then we'll sandwich it back on with all this extra soil back on top and then we'll start growing into it. Oh, if you watched my video on clearing this pumpkin vine and getting it off these main beds, you would have seen me making this pile. Now you're seeing me take this pile and put it in the garden bed. Bit of double handling. No, no, no. Now this wood chip isn't that old. It's probably a few weeks old, if that. It's from an ornamental that I cut down around here and a large hedge that got out of control. And so it won't matter that this is a little new. It doesn't have to be fully broken down or anything like that or on the way to be broken down because it's going to get broken down in there. And the whole point is to keep that bed, well, breaking down slowly so I can grow in it without it sinking too fast. So this will suit me just fine. And there's a lot of leaf matter in here too. It's not just wood chip. Actually, I think I can get a better tool than this. Shovel is making it hard work. This is what I'm looking for. Oh, yes. Except you've only got that other problem of things getting stuck in it. But you can lift more with it. Just no easy ways there. Unless I've got a mini backhoe or something, but I can't afford one of them. You know, one of those mini diggers, that'd be handy in my place. I'll tell you what, I'm glad I've got that Hansa. Thanks to Hansa, at least I don't have to chip my wood up by hand. That would be a turn up, wouldn't it? But that thing there, the C21, what a beast. What a lovely machine. I recommend it to anyone that wants a chipper. Made in New Zealand. Operations here in Australia. Plenty of servicing departments. It's a fantastic machine. Love it. Well, I've been gone for a while. It looks like it's getting full, but when I walk on it and push it down, which is what I need to do, otherwise you're just gonna get too much sinking straight away as soon as you put the soil on top. So when I walk on it like this, it just compacts it down, which is good, but it just means I gotta fill more and keep going all about it. Yeah, it's amazing how much you can compact down and you don't want the bed falling unevenly either. So it's best to make sure you go around and trample every bit down the same so that it will sink. There's no doubt about that. All garden beds sink. All raised garden beds sink over time, even once filled with soil. But the point is you want it falling at the same rate where possible. I think we're getting close. Yes, I reckon now we can finally start filling it with that soil. What I'll do is I'll start from what I first pulled out, which is in this cart and the wheelbarrow, and then I'll finish off with that last bit. And the reason for it is because that topsoil is what was growing. Everything underneath that topsoil was sort of resting. You know, it's right, beautiful compost-made soil and medium that's underneath there that a lot of the roots and the veggie roots that I've been growing in here haven't been able to get down and get. So why not, if I've got the opportunity, which I have, because I dug all that bottom layer of soil out, might as well put that fresh or better stuff on top and the older stuff here on the bottom in first, sort of the reverse. It's a small thing, probably won't make a lot of difference, but it might make some. Boy, I think that's a job for tomorrow. It's getting late. It's the next day, late in the afternoon too, because I had to do some filming. And coincidentally, I went up the North Coast and I went to Danny's Farm, which is called Nurture Community Farm or Nurture Community Garden. And they happen to be growing a heck of a lot in wood chip. So it's kind of fitting that I made that trip today and came back and finished off this job. And I did talk about it when I was up there. So you'll probably see that bit in the video where I did talk about this job that I'm doing, but it was very interesting to see how a farm, well, a small farm, is growing pretty much in wood chip. And the reason why was to save costs. Wood chip is cheap. Wood chip can be got for free. Compost takes a long time. And so in lieu of compost, Danny's opted to grow in wood chip, even pretty young wood chip, on his farm there. And you should see those veggies. They are growing beautifully. So we go through and talk about how wood chip is assisting him grow the best veggies ever for that charity organisation and ed. Anyway, let's finish this off. So it's late in the afternoon. I want to get it done before nightfall. And I've got a lot of soil to throw in here. Hopefully my calculations are correct. We should have enough dirt to fill the top of this garden bed to give it a bit of a mound up. So it'll allow for a little bit of fall, but over time, it'll still fall quite considerably. And underneath that, that'll turn, all that wood chip will turn into beautiful black gold. All right, let's get to it. Enough talk. I think I've just about got this perfect. I'm not going to fertilise the bed. I probably should throw some rock minerals in here though. That could be a good idea. Yeah, I'll do that. But I don't think we'll need fertiliser. I think this will be fertile enough and I'll judge it. If they're looking pale and the plants aren't growing great, well then I'll give it a bit of liquid fertiliser or some organic blood and bone or something like that. But for now, I think we'll just add some rock minerals. There's another worm trying to dig a way down. That's all it is. And that's some sugarcane mulch. I'm not going to go too thick, just an inch or so. That just protects that beautiful compost soil from crusting up and drying out. Helps the plants retain moisture and protects them too from the cold through this winter. Yeah, a little goes a long way with this stuff. Compressed sugarcane mulch into these bars, just finely cut, really good stuff. Just give this a bit of a wet down. Keeps it in place and stops the dust. And just watering some of those rock minerals as well. Let them dissolve. All right, now I reckon we plant the coriander because it'll grow fairly big when the sun comes over this way. Might plant the coriander just in this corner here. It can grow up, it can slump over, whatever. And yeah, we'll take up about a little space there. We'll plant them pretty close together. And I think we'll plant some of these potatoes that I've got there. They look like they're raring to go. You're just ready for the coriander planting. It won't matter that they're fairly close together because I'm going to harvest it young anyway. I'm going to keep it bushy and harvest it like you would see in the store. Big handful of coriander, several plants, probably pay $10.50 for it. These ones came up for free. I'll try not to disturb these roots too much. See how they're holding on. Plump it in and backfill. These are store-bought potatoes that have gone green and are starting to shoot. I think I won't cut them up. I'm just going to plant them whole right along the back here about a wrist deep and just see how they go. Probably, yeah, 25 centimetres apart or so. Little bit back there. Let those potatoes flop over a bit and just some stagnant, stagnated, staggered. That's the word, staggered. Through there. Some of those small ones that look like they're not doing too well. See how lucky we get. And yeah, just dig them under nice and easy in this beautiful soil. Keep the eyes, if I can, pointing up and cover them over. And if I need to hill them up, I will. Well, that should give the bed a whole new lease on life and hopefully it will add a lot more fill to it so that I can eventually get this to maximum size and fill it up with soil. So it's filling it at the same time growing in it. How cool is that? Well, I hope you enjoyed the video. If you did, make sure you give it a big thumbs up. Go to my website, selfsufficientme.com. Have a look at the support page there. It's got a little support me button. You can go there and you can see the businesses that I work with. Most of them have organized discounts that you can get from them just simply by following my code. Yeah, I get a bit of a kickback, a small affiliatization, small commission, but at the same time, most of them are shared. So I share my commission that I've worked out with them, with you, so that you get a discount as well as I get a small commission. So that's pretty cool, I think. 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