How to Layer Soil for Square Foot Gardens

Video Transcript

"Hi. This is Yolanda Vanveen on behalf of Expert Village. In this series, we are talking about square foot gardening, which is really only a raised bed broken down into one foot sections so you can keep your plants contained. So, when you are laying down your soil in a raised bed or a square foot garden, there's some simple, easy tips that can make it easier. My first tip is: instead of going directly with your compost, if you put a little bit of a layer on the very bottom of your bed of grass clippings and leaves and maybe some wood mulch, it will actually add quite a bit of air to your bed. That way, it will break down over the years into compost and just add a lot of enrichment to your soil. And also, your beds will stay very dry in the winter because they have a layer of compost, wood clippings and airy clippings underneath. After that, I only do one or two inches of mulch and then I add my compost on top. Just fill up a wheel barrow, roll it over to your raised or square foot garden, dump it inside, take a rake and even it out and as long as the soil is about six inches tall in your eight inch tall square foot garden, you are good to go. It's as easy as that. In the next segment, we'll talk about how to make a grid (your one foot by one foot grid) within your four foot by four foot square foot garden."