Refreshing soil after winter

Hi all.

After my first year growing vegetables in my newly created raised bed a year on I'm looking for advice on what I should be doing to replenish my bed for the upcoming spring and summer. Last year having only one bed I adopted a square foot gardening method and grew things from Brussels sprouts and cabbages to beetroots, lettuce and leeks. It was very successful and I had an amazing crop.

Now with the dawn of spring I started clearing the bed today of old perennial weeds and lightly forked the soil to clear out the bed. Photon attached.

Moving forward I plan to focus on faster growing crops like spinach, lettuce, rocket and other leafy greens and wondered what I should be doing to prep before sowing my seeds. I'm also going to be doing beetroot again and maybe some other root l veg and just need some guidance on what to do. Last year the bed had a generous blend of topsoil, various compost types and some farmyard manure. I also had some mushroom compost added in that I had access to which really seemed to help the brassicas. I'm not wanting to go overboard this time so any tips would be welcomed.

Best regards
Nikos

 

Wow this looks really neat and tidy. I wish my growing plot would look like that...

But to be honest, for me it already looks awesome enough. Maybe mix a little compost into the soil, but I would already start with some like radishes.

During the end of year I always take the dried up carcasses of my peas, runner beans and pumpkins, cut them into shorter pieces and bury them to rot. But besides that, not so much.

 

Hi Nikos, well done on your harvest. Im not sure if this comes too late now but it may be helpful for the future. From what I have read, watched and heard, just putting a good couple of inch thick layer of good quality compost on the bed once a year or so should do the trick, even with multiple harvests. If you can get some well matured manure that would be a good addition too. Also try and get some nitrogen fixers to grow in the bed so they help replenish any depletion from heavy feeding veggies.

 

As @Peas has said put a layer of mulch on. I do this on my beds in November/December and it gives the worms time to work some through the soil. I use home made compost. I am hoping landing on raising the height of my beds this Autumn and will get a load of leaves that I will put through the mower and put a 2 inch layer on and give them a soaking. I will then put 2 inches of f compost on top of the leaves.

Rusty

 

Hi both.

Thanks so much for the reply. I am way into the season now and decided to go for a basic replenishment using some rock dust and some organic chicken manure. I let this rest and then after a week or so I added a couple inch layer of compost including homemade compost. I've since seeded and things have been coming through nicely lately.