Soil & Garden Beds

Our Resources

• VIDEO: Making Raised Beds and Using Containers (below)

• VIDEO: Soil and Bed Preparation (below)

• GARDENS FOR LEARNING: Chapter 7 - Planting Your School Garden, pp. 56-59

• CSYSG TRAINING HANDOUTS: Download on bottom of the page.

Building Healthy Soil

• Download the whole story on healthy soil, preparing beds, and making compost from Center for Agroecology & Sustainable Food Systems (CASFS), UC Santa Cruz

• Try Cover Crops, crops you can plant outside the growing season that build up your soil, also from CASFS, UC Santa Cruz

• Gardens for Learning, Chapter 7 (download link above), reviews double digging, a technique for improving your soil deep down, especially when you are breaking new ground.

Making Raised Beds & Preparing the Ground

• Sunset's take on making raised garden beds in the ground and making planting boxes

• Videos on making raised beds and prepping the soil from GrowOrganic.Com and from National Gardening Association

Also Related: Making Compost and Amendments

• CSYSG's Videos on Making compost bins and Worm bins

• Vermicomposting, or letting worms do the work, from CASFS

Calculate how much soil you need to fill planting boxes:

• Gardener's Supply Company;

• Soil Buildings Systems (adjusts for settling);

• Soil Direct (for different sized and shaped beds);

• Convert from cubic feet to cubic yards.

DOWNLOADS:

• Basic GardenTools

• Garden Bed Types

• Nitty Gritty_Determing Your Soil Texture

• Soil and Bed Preparation