Tilling Raised Garden Beds

Question

I need directions on how to till your raised garden bed to prepare it for planting.

Answer 1

With my raised beds I just use a garden fork. Sticking it down into the soils as far as I can but not past where the fork to handle stem joint is. Then rock back on the fork until the soils turn up. I do this throughout the raised bed, repeating the turning of the soils until I get a nice loose consistancy. If there are any clumps, I either break them up with my hands or smack them with the garden fork which usually breaks them up. Before doing the soils turning I will rake the top surface well and remove the debris I rake up. If there may be alot of seeds in there that I do not want in the new plantings I have planned, I will also lightly use a shop vac on the top surface before tilling it up. Sounds a little crazy I suppose but it does help keep the amount of weed or flower seeds that I have to deal with in my new planting scheme down to a minimum. There are also some small electric tillers that can be used to work the soils up if the garden fork method does not work for you.