Raised garden beds are a fantastic way to maximize the space in your garden, and to ensure a healthy growing environment for plants if you have low-quality soil near your home. But they do have a few quirks – including a tendency to dry out quickly due to shallow soil. So in this guide from The Soil King, we’ll take a look at a few ways you can stop your raised garden bed from drying out.
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Choose The Right Soil Mix
You can’t just use potting soil for a garden bed. We recommend a mixture of about 60% topsoil, 30% compost, and 10% potting soil that contains pumice stone or peat moss. If you're looking for a simple solution, Big Rootz soil is carefully created to be the ideal soil mix right out of the bag, no mixing required.
If you use an overly-high proportion of potting soil, your soil will dry out very quickly due to how efficiently materials like peat moss absorb and evaporate water. If you’re having trouble with your soil composition, adding compost is always a good idea!
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Invest In Soaker Hoses
Soaker hoses, also known as “drip hoses,” are built to gradually drip water into raised garden beds. You can lay them around your garden bed, and connect them to a water source to deliver water directly to the roots. This minimizes the risk of evaporation and you can leave the hose in place to make it easy to water your garden beds. Whenever it’s time to water, just connect the hoses to your water source, turn it on, and deliver water directly to the base of your garden bed.
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Make Sure The Soil Is Deep Enough
Your raised garden bed should be at least 12 inches, with 18 inches being preferred for growing vegetables. The deeper the bed, the more soil it can hold – and the more soil you have, the more water it can absorb and retain.
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Mulch The Garden Bed To Retain Moisture
Adding a layer of mulch to the top of your garden bed is one of the simplest and most effective ways to lock in moisture. It also helps protect your plants from thermal shock and frost, making mulch very valuable for anyone growing plants in a raised garden bed.
Follow These Tips For Healthier Raised Garden Beds!
Thanks to these tips from The Soil King, you should be able to minimize dryness in your raised garden beds. Need supplies or more information? Shop online or find a retailer near you now!