Mick Doobie
Resist We Much
Yes, the 3 raised beds were the first of our garden beds. She added perlite to these 3. Both types of beds are productive, just one was more costly to build. At the time, we were buying much of the materials including compost as we didn't have enough. A big part of my wife initially not wanting to expand the garden was cost. Eventually we figured out how to get low and no cost materials. For instance, I started out with a used chipper/shredder for leaves and tree branches but ended up getting fresh wood chips for composting from a tree company that drives past our house almost daily. As the wood begins to break down, it provides more than just ground cover.
Many plants have specific needs and we still end up with supplements such as natural gypsum for calcium for the tomatoes. Wife is also a big fan of fish emulsion early with seedlings after they go in the ground. Blood meal and Bone meal are two others she uses. The bed most of the tomatoes are in, is new this year. They are doing amazingly well.
Yeah, the Roma tomato main bottom stem(s) look nice and thick. They'll come in all at once, yeah? You canning or freezing those?
The cooperative or whatever it's called for soil testing is about 45 miles away here. I ran across a diy soil test using two samples, one with vinegar and one with baking soda. Mix with dirt and see which one foams, or something like that. Opinion? I'm sure it won't tell everything about the soil one might like/need to know, but maybe a start?