Oliver Bennett
There is nothing quite like that first mild morning in late February when the soil finally feels workable again. If your raised beds have sat quietly under winter rain and the odd dusting of frost, they will be ready for a bit of attention now. Spend a couple of hours on them and you will be rewarded with healthier plants, fewer pests and a harvest that keeps coming well into autumn.
Start by Taking Stock of Each Bed
Before you lift a fork, walk round with a notebook and have a proper look at what you are dealing with. Raised beds settle over winter, and the compost you added last spring will have slumped by several centimetres. Scrape back the top layer in a couple of spots to see how deep the growing medium actually is. You want a minimum of 25 to 30 centimetres of decent soil for most vegetables, and more for carrots, parsnips and maincrop potatoes.
While you are there, note which beds look tired, which have gone sour and waterlogged, and which are riddled with perennial weeds. It is much easier to fix these problems now than in May, when everything is in full growth and you are reluctant to disturb it.
Top Up with Compost and Well-Rotted Manure
A raised bed is a hungry thing. Crops take nutrients out, rain washes others through, and the organic matter you put in last year is steadily being digested by worms and soil life. The single best thing you can do is add a generous layer of compost across the surface, ideally five centimetres or so, and let the worms pull it down.
If you garden on clay, that layer of compost is what will transform your beds over the years, improving drainage without losing fertility. On sandy soils it does the opposite, holding onto moisture and nutrients that would otherwise vanish. Either way, you cannot really overdo it.
- Homemade compost is ideal if it is dark, crumbly and free of recognizable bits of kitchen waste.
- Well-rotted manure is brilliant for hungry crops such as courgettes, brassicas and potatoes, but make sure it is at least a year old.
- Leafmould is excellent for improving structure and is perfect for mulching around fruit bushes.
- Spent mushroom compost is alkaline, so keep it away from acid-lovers like blueberries.
Spread it, then fork it lightly into the top few centimetres. Do not dig it deep. The whole point of a raised bed is that you build soil life from the top down.
Deal With Weeds Before They Get a Hold
Winter is kind to weeds, and a bed that looked clear in November can be green with chickweed and bittercress by March. Hand-weed while the soil is damp and the roots come away easily. Annual weeds are simple enough, but perennials need patience.
- Couch grass spreads by underground runners, so tease out every fragment you can find and bin it rather than compost it.
- Bindweed needs relentless removal. Dig out the white roots as deep as your fork will go, and expect to repeat the job in a few weeks.
- Docks and dandelions have taproots, so use a narrow trowel or old knife to loosen and lift them whole.
Once the beds are clear, a mulch of compost or bark will suppress new seedlings and save you hours of hoeing through summer. Just leave a small gap around the stems of any overwintered plants so you do not smother them.
Rotate Your Crops Sensibly
Crop rotation sounds like something only farmers bother with, but it matters just as much in a small plot. Different plant families take different nutrients from the soil and attract different pests, so moving them round breaks the cycle. It is also a handy way to plan your sowing.
The simplest approach is a four-bed rotation. Group your crops into brassicas (cabbage, kale, broccoli, sprouts), legumes (peas and beans), roots (carrots, parsnips, beetroot) and potatoes, then shuffle them each year. Legumes fix nitrogen and leave the soil richer, so follow them with hungry brassicas. Root crops prefer ground that was manured the previous season rather than freshly enriched, so put them where last year's potatoes grew. Keep a rough sketch of what went where, because by August you will have forgotten.
Warm the Soil and Get Sowing
Cold, wet soil is the main reason early sowings fail. Two or three weeks before you intend to sow, cover your beds with cloches, fleece or even a sheet of clear polythene weighted down at the edges. This warms the top few centimetres and dries it out enough to work.
Once it is ready, direct sow hardy crops such as broad beans, early peas, spinach and chard. Salad leaves, radish and spring onions can go in under cover, and onion sets and garlic can be planted out as soon as the ground is workable. Start tender crops like tomatoes, courgettes and squash indoors, but hold off planting them outside until the risk of frost has passed.
Finish the job by giving each bed a light rake, a final weed and a label so you know what is where. Then put the kettle on, look over your handiwork and enjoy the quiet satisfaction of knowing the hard part is done. The growing season will take care of the rest.
