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Hi all, I posted previously about making no-dig beds on a slope in North Wales. The challenges continue to present themselves! Our village/mountain is notorious for being a very rocky area. It’s a glacial valley and the glacier seems to have deposited many of it’s biggest rocks right here. With this in mind we’re trying to dig all the beds down to 1ft to remove any rocks we find, double digging in the process (realising this is completely against the no-dig principle!) to then build raised beds of around 1.5′-2′ of beautiful tilled earth. But not even halfway along the first bed of the 60 we plan to have (75cm wide, 18m long), we’ve come across 3 rocks that are around 1m square, possibly bigger as we’ve not found all the edges of 2 of them! They are about 6″ down or thereabouts, but when the roots reach them they will have nowhere to go. So as of yet that’s all the beds we’ve got prepared, two others edged and waiting. But with all these huge rocks it’s taking an especially long time. The growing season is getting in it’s swing and we’ve got nowhere to put anything yet. If we leave the rocks in and cover them with soil, leaving our plant’s roots with just 1ft of depth before hitting rock – will they grow successfully? Any help, thoughts, musings etc. would be greatly appreciated. Many thanks, Joe
Hello Joe, you sum it up when you say “The growing season is getting in it’s swing and we’ve got nowhere to put anything yet”.
Growing food to sell has tiny profit margins and you cannot afford to remove the boulders, perhaps a few that are right in the way and not too big. Even on a level site with deep soil, the financial constraints are considerable.
Yes it would be wonderful to make even beds with deep soil. But I think its a lot cheaper to cover with compost. Many plants will root around the rocks below, it sounds like there is good soil between them. For sure, you may struggle with parsnips!
Best of luck however you decide to grow.
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