- Springtime is coming,
I'm sure like me, you've got a lot of areas that are empty
and ready to put plants in.
Or perhaps it's your first year,
and you're not sure what to do in terms of preparing the bed
and what are perhaps the best ways to prepare a bed
before sowing or planting into.
So in this video, I want to cover all of the core things
to think about, and techniques, and methods to ensure
that whatever you do so,
whatever you do transplant gets off
to the best start possible.
We're coming out of winter,
which means the hungry gap is approaching.
So, I've got a few crops to help cover that.
Here is some purple sprouting broccoli
which will be hopefully producing
in maybe two or three weeks.
But, the rest of the garden is ready
for those new crops that we can enjoy
in late spring and summer.
And there's three things that you gotta ask yourself,
as we're coming out of winter,
when it comes to the condition of your beds.
The first consideration is thinking about
when the bed was last mulched with compost.
Because I follow no dig principles,
I usually put around three to five centimeters
of compost over the surface of a garden bed
every single year.
If it's been over a year,
you might want to consider putting at least
two to three centimeters of compost over the top.
The second consideration is what is the weed situation like
in a raised bed?
Are there a lot of weeds?
Is it relatively clear?
Before putting down any mulch, if it's needed,
just weed the bed
so you're starting with a nice blank canvas.
It's really good for your head space as well.
Looking at a raised bed and not thinking,
"Oh no, I gotta do some weeding."
And the final consideration to make before sowing
or transplanting is to actually think back
to the previous growing season.
What crop was growing there?
Did that crop suffer a particularly bad pest or disease?
'Cause that could still be active in the ground.
For example, I had carrots here that, at the end,
succumbed to some carrot root fly.
So, I know this year, I don't wanna grow carrots here again.
But I'm happy to grow anything else
that isn't going to be affected by that pest.
Once you've taken those three considerations into account
it's time to now think about how to prepare beds
before sowing directly .
At the moment, I'm only sowing undercover,
'cause it's still a bit too early.
However, it's not early to start getting my raised beds
ready for sowing in around two or three weeks.
So, moisture in the soil is one of the most important things
for germinating seeds.
If it's dry, the seeds simply won't germinate.
Outside, here in a temperate climate here in the UK,
at this time of year I don't need to worry about
my raised beds drying out.
However, you do have to be a little bit careful
with raised beds undercover.
The problem with beds undercover is that there's no rain.
Rain can't come through and because often less is happening
and growth is a lot slower in winter,
it's easier to forget about these,
and the soil can actually dry out.
So, what you want to do is say,
if you're going to be sowing into your bed
in your polytunnel,
you actually want to make sure that there's a good amount
of moisture in the soil before hand.
And there's a certain washing technique that I
use to make sure that it is nice and ready for sowing seeds
and making sure that they germinate.
The best way to rehydrate a dry raised bed
is to actually do it over a process of a day.
What you'll find is if you just put on a lot of water
it'll start pooling and running off,
rather than going down.
what you want to do is approach it in a slow and steady way.
You want to give it a good water,
leave it for 10, 15 minutes,
come back give it another good water and keep repeating.
So, I'd maybe put maybe 10 watering cans
over the course of maybe two hours on this bed
and then I'll cover it
with cardboard and leave it overnight.
Then by the next morning, I'll remove the cardboard
and I'll go down and chances are,
there's going to be a really nice spread
of water going downwards.
And then what you'll find,
is when you give it another water the next day,
the water is gonna go straight down
into the ground where you want it.
Now, during March or April
there's often a period of one or two weeks
that we don't actually get any rain.
And this is where some of your beds might start drying out.
What I'd simply ask is either, you can water them
and deal with it, or actually wait for some heavy rain.
And then, sow into those beds afterwards
because a week's difference isn't gonna make too much.
Chances are when you have really dry weather
you're gonna have clear nights.
So, it's gonna be really cold in the night.
So, you might want to wait for that warmer air temperatures
in the evening to come, which usually brings rain
to then do your first initial sowing of the season.
When you're sowing directly into the ground,
you want a nice kind of prepared surface,
which makes it easy for you to create seed drills
or trenches which means everything's
gotta be the right layer.
And you also don't want like stones and fibrous bits
of compost in the way, 'cause it just holds you back.
So, what I do is I like to create a tilth.
When it comes to rakes, I use the back of the rake
a lot more than the actual teeth of the rake
because I find it much easier to start creating
a level surface.
So what I do, is I just push it all out,
create a level surface.
And then, once I'm happy with that
I'll very loosely, along the top, skim with the teeth.
And what that does, is it captures all of the bigger bits
that I can just skim over into a corner
and then place that onto the compost.
So then, I'm left with this beautiful light, fluffy,
throwable, growing medium
which I can then start creating some seed drills
ready to so seeds in, it just makes life a lot easier.
If you've just mulched a bed with compost,
you don't really need to make a tilth,
you just need to make sure that it's fairly flat
and even just so when it comes to seed sowing depth,
it remains fairly constant.
This bed here, I've actually mulched with RocketGro,
it's a compost brand that I'm an ambassador of this year
and I'm gonna be putting it through its paces
to see how it does.
So, it's gonna be interesting to see how this bed,
where I'm gonna be transplanting and direct sowing,
using Rocketgro compost is going to perform.
And I've got a bed in the polytunnel as well.
And you'll see how this kind of performs
during every single garden tour that I'm gonna do this year.
So, this is some chives that I bought last year
and I've forgot to put them out,
and you can see the amazing root structure
and it's definitely a bit root bound, but that's okay.
But, transplanting I find is a lot easier
and simpler when it comes to bed preparation
compared to sowing.
You don't need to create a tilth,
because you're not having to create nice rows.
All you're doing is placing plants
directly into the ground.
If you're planting something in singular holes, for example,
this garlic is around five centimeters, two inches deep.
You don't actually need to bother creating a tilth anyway.
All I did to prepare this bed was put over
a light surface mulch of compost.
And then I went in,
and planted the garlic in the individual holes.
It's as easy as that.
When you're transplanting a seedling into a bed
you've got all of this compost,
which is holding onto water,
and then you water it in after transplanting.
And what you can actually do is,
if the bed is fairly dry you can get away
with not having to water the whole bed,
just water around where the seedlings are.
And then all you need to do is wait
for some heavy rainfall to do the rest.
You can always mulch them if you want,
with a little bit of extra compost,
but it's really rather simple
in terms of transplanting and bed preparation.
As long as it's got some compost on
that I've put in within the last six to eight months.
I am more than happy planting straight into it
and not worrying about anything else.
If you happen to suffer from slug damage
there's a technique that you can start implementing today,
weeks before sowing or transplanting.
And it's great,
if you know that you're gonna be transplanting
something that is very prone to slug damage like lettuce,
here in a week's time, use this method.
All you need is some kind of big board like this.
You place it on the ground like that.
And what you'll find is
if you come every morning and turn it over chances are
you're gonna find slugs hiding underneath it.
It's a perfect habitat for slugs.
So, if you get a nice big plank like this,
or a nice big slate or stone and do this every week
what you're gonna do is actually capture
a lot of the slugs within this vicinity
to remove them before the plants
and the tender seedlings come.
And it's a great way to actually help prepare
this area, and the surrounding area,
for your plants this springtime.
During the grow season,
it's a little bit different
because if you're preparing to sow
or transplant something,
chances are you've just cleared that bed
of a particular crop.
So, you don't need to really worry about weeds.
You've probably already given it a mulch of compost,
either the autumn or spring beforehand.
So, what you want to do is actually
leave as many of the previous crops roots in the ground,
that helps to contribute to soil health.
Maybe just give it a little rake,
but then just put plants in it straight away,
whether you're going to direct sow,
just work around the roots that are still in the ground
or transplanting something, it is much easier.
Because, usually when you have a crop growing
and covering the surface, it acts as a living mulch.
So, you don't have to worry
about the soil being dry either,
because the beds aren't exposed to the elements.
What I want you to take away from this video
is that bed preparation for sowing or transplanting
is actually, it's really simple.
That's how it should be,
gardening is a very simple process.
Obviously, a big part of it is,
that idea of mulching with a layer of compost.
And if you're struggling to create enough compost
for your garden,
you can never have too much homemade compost.
And I've got this video here,
which shows you eight great free ingredients
to bulk up your compost bin.
So, you can make a lot more
to help nourish your garden and your plants.