Your first link is to tomato fertilizer, so no, it isn’t suitable alone for growth medium.
Bagged plant soil like that pictured in the second link is OK for the entire raised bed contents, with slow-release granular fertilizer mixed in. When stocking raised beds I’ve tended to cheap out and use inexpensive bagged soil at $2 or so per 40-pound bag, amending that with peat moss, composted manure and whatever soilless medium I have left over from growing potted plants.
I don’t see the point of having a growing medium whose top 3 inches is different from what you have in the remainder of the bed.
Good to know! I can do that. I hate those ugly little critters. One time I was so grossed out, I snipped the branch one was on and stuck it in the garbage disposal.
But if the problem is that the plants they’re buying aren’t suited to their particular location, simplifying in that fashion may cause them to continue having zero luck.
That may not be the problem, of course. But it’s certainly one of the possibilities.
The Miracle Grow garden soil you’ve listed already contains fertilizer, and is intended to be enough on its own for some time, though the fertilizer won’t last all season according to what I can see of the label. I have no experience with the Miracle Grow products as they’re not allowed for organic use.
The Burpee fertilizer, as has already been said, isn’t a growing medium at all, just a fertilizer. It might be fine for use as fertilizer if your growing medium isn’t already high in one or more of its components; including for fertilizer use later in the season if the growing medium you choose includes starter fertilizer.
Always, always read the labels of anything before you use it. Applying straight fertilizer, even slow-release fertilizer, as if it were garden soil or potting soil will probably kill anything you plant there. Too much is not better than enough, it’s worse. (It’s also a pollutant: applying too much gets the excess it into water systems, and both N and P are common pollutants for that reason. Again, some is necessary, but too much is toxic – true also of trace nutrients, which good fertilizer sources will also have.)
My raised beds are made all out of field soil, by piling topsoil from inbetween the beds onto the beds with a tractor-drawn bedmaker. If I were going to fill beds with purchased bagged soil, I’d probably use something like one of these:
most likely either the “enriched topsoil blend” or the “premium garden blend”. However shipping this stuff around is expensive and you might want to see what’s available locally; or to use the soil already in your yard and mix in some quality compost, whether from McEnroe or somebody else. (Avoid Milorganite or other municipal sewage material – the problem isn’t human shit, we know how to make that harmless and they do; the problem is that it’s likely to be contaminated with some nasty chemicals. People put all sorts of things down the toilet.)
Especially for tomatoes, which set roots much deeper than that.
In natural conditions, different soil life will develop in the top three inches; much of which doesn’t survive well deeper, and much of the deeper soil life won’t survive well in the top three inches. But that’s a matter of not stirring your soil up deeply too much after the beds are established.
The other issue is that if the underlying soil doesn’t drain well you may want a layer of gravelly or sandy material further down in the bed; but that should be lower down than three inches, more like a foot deep. And if the underlying soil is already gravelly or sandy, or even good clay loam or fractured rock, it shouldn’t be necessary. The advice given earlier in the thread to break up the underlying soil first is a good idea, though, even if the natural material drains well if given the chance, because it may be overcompacted into hardpan; especially if it’s been heavily used lawn and/or driven on a lot.
One must do one’s homework before trying to plant most things. If you don’t do your diligence, then disappointment will follow. Also, if a gardening supply house is selling plants that are not compatible with the zone they are in, they should be dragged through the streets whilst the populace yells “SHAME!” and pelts them with dung.
Fine by me; but in practice the big box stores sell whatever they can easily get their hands on. Diseased, unsuitable, whatever, they don’t care. And some places calling themselves garden centers or whatever do too.
If the OP bought their plants at a local greenhouse of good reputation, then they should be OK. But they haven’t answered that question so I don’t know where they got them.
Yeah, we bought a tomato plant from the local Ace Hardware last year and put it in a large pot on the building’s terrace; I think we got about five maters from it. I think this year we’ll drive out to the big dog gardening center and see if we can do better. We miss Portland Nursery in our old home.
Bagged topsoil or “garden soil” (more expensive, both available on that website) should probably be the largest component of the media in your raised bed. That stuff varies in quality; my impression is that a lot of it derives from what developers scrape off the top layers of ground around new home construction sites (which can then be sold back to the homeowners to replace what was removed, nice) or from razed forest or brushland, mixed with some peat moss and composted plant refuse. It should support tomatoes given a few amendments and granular slow-release fertilizer according to directions.
The measurements listed in the OP are confusing to me so I won’t attempt to advise you on the exact amounts needed, but you should be able to accommodate a bale or two or peat moss and a few bags of composted manure like this or something similar. Mix well.
All of it is available from any big box store, Ace Hardware, garden centers and the like.
I’ve got the framework for a raised bed that’s been sitting in the garage for over a decade. Time to haul it out and see what to put in it.
Topsoil or garden soil or something of that sort. And it may come pre-mixed with the first round of fertilizer; in which case you shouldn’t add any immediately. Read the labels to see what it’s for. Read the labels for anything you put on the garden. If you don’t understand the label, don’t use it till you do.
OK, I’m back with another question: Do I need to lay some sort of fabric layer on the ground before filling the bed with topsoil? I’m thinking this may impede root growth, but I want to be sure.
I tracked down the bed I bought if anyone is interested.
Not unless the soil underneath is contaminated with something nasty; or if you’re growing something in the bed that’s highly invasive and spreads from the roots, and you want to make sure can’t escape outside it. In either of those cases you wouldn’t want fabric, but some sort of very heavyweight barrier; most fabric will let roots and other things through eventually, though will slow it down. It’ll let roots through faster if buried underground than if laid over the top – IME even a little soil on top (such as spilled potting soil in a greenhouse) may give things enough of a foothold to get their roots through.
If the soil there naturally isn’t toxic and the plants you’re growing are ordinary garden plants, I wouldn’t. I don’t see that it would accomplish anything useful, and while it won’t indefinitely stop root growth through it it’ll certainly slow it down.
If you are putting the bed directly on top of lawn, I would put something down to stop the grass coming through. I’ve used thick cardboard in the past.
