Soil & manure in raised beds

Yorky

Hello all, the soil in my raised beds is heavy clay type and the level has dropped since I put it in (spring 2008) so I topped them up with well-rotted manure last November. I am attempting to operate a 'no-dig' policy and hoped the worms in the compost would do the work for me.

The compost is actually so well-rotted that the worms had moved on so it hasn't really worked in to the soil. Bearing in my mind I don't want to damage the structure of the soil by digging, should I just rake it level and sow / transplant straight in to it?

Also, I haven't sown yet and am considering covering each bed with clear plastic in order to warm up the soil for the next couple of weeks - is this a good idea whether I dig the soil or not?.

Finally, I have one bed for root vegetables which I covered with autumn leaves rather than manure (to prevent forking/splitting). I covered this in plastic garden mesh to hold them in place so it was fully open to the elements but the leaves haven't decomposed. What should I do with these?

Sonnenblumen

Yorky wrote: »

Hello all, the soil in my raised beds is heavy clay type and the level has dropped since I put it in (spring 2008) so I topped them up with well-rotted manure last November. I am attempting to operate a 'no-dig' policy and hoped the worms in the compost would do the work for me.

The compost is actually so well-rotted that the worms had moved on so it hasn't really worked in to the soil. Bearing in my mind I don't want to damage the structure of the soil by digging, should I just rake it level and sow / transplant straight in to it?

Also, I haven't sown yet and am considering covering each bed with clear plastic in order to warm up the soil for the next couple of weeks - is this a good idea whether I dig the soil or not?.

Finally, I have one bed for root vegetables which I covered with autumn leaves rather than manure (to prevent forking/splitting). I covered this in plastic garden mesh to hold them in place so it was fully open to the elements but the leaves haven't decomposed. What should I do with these?

Yorky

starting in reverse order:

much better to take the autumn leaves and shred/cut with lawn mower to accelerate decompostion, otherwise they will (depending on type) take at least 6-12 months to compost.

soil levels will naturally settle/drop, this is a natural result of air escaping from freshly dug soils. You could simply restore levels by topping up with well rotted fine grade compost/soil conditioner.

I am not a big fan of seeing/using plastic in the veg garden, if I wanted to raise ground temps, I'd much prefer to use straw which will allow some air and moisture to penetrate soil and eventually decompose and become part of the mix as season progresses. Plastic might 'sweat' the soil, starve it of valuable moisture and oxygen, the process must also accelerate some compaction of the area.

Sorry but the 'no dig' policy is not one for me. Again simply lightly forking the area will do no damage to soil structure. If the latter is very heavy, the more digging and adding some soil conditioning materials will help improve the structure. Also some vegetables are natural soil structure improvers.;)