Raised beds and imported organic soil

Several years ago, when I started my vegetable garden, I settled on using raised beds due to the poor soil quality on our property. Basically, we have clay and rocks for soil so I needed to improve it with various soil amendments like fertilizer and peat moss. Things really took off in my garden when my office mate at work, Charlie, offered me a truckload of several year old horse manure. I mixed the manure with the soil I had and made mounded, raised beds to plant in. The next year, to improve my soil and build more raised beds, I bought an organic mix of topsoil and compost from McEnroe Organic Farm. The soil itself isn't terribly expensive ($41 per cubic yard these days) but add in the trucking fee and each 5 cubic yard truckload ends up costing you nearly $400. So far, I've justified the cost (and my carbon guilt over having organic soil trucked 50 miles to my house) by rationalizing that gardening is my one true hobby and that great soil produces great tasting vegetables. Once I start producing enough compost for my garden on my own, I'll no longer need to buy soil and/or compost and I'll be able to return to my more naturally frugal, greener approach to life.

There are pluses and minuses to growing in raised beds. Hot weather plants (for example, tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers/chiles, melons, squash, and eggplant) can thrive in them because they definitely heat up more quickly than the surrounding soil. But, because of that, they also tend to dry out quicker and so are not the best choice when it comes to water conservation. And, of course, plants that like it cooler (for example, peas and spinach) may require some mulching with straw to cool off the warmer soil in a raised bed. For me, I had the choice of doing a full replace of my rocky, clay soil or building raised beds on top of them. Raised beds saved me some work.

BTW, I found out about McEnroe's Organic Farm through a book Linda had given me as a present: Keith Stewart's It's a Long Road to a Tomato. The book is a collection of Keith's writings for The Valley Table magazine which is a publication dedicated to local food, farms, and cuisine in the Hudson Valley. Keith was in his 40s living in NYC, working as a corporate project manager, when he decided to go back to the land. He purchased a farm in Orange County and over time, became a full-time organic farmer and he currently sells his produce at the Union Square farmer's market in NYC. It's a great read, a great story of a return to the land complete with beautiful drawings (by his partner Flavia Bacarella) and lots of insight and tips for the organic farmer. Every year, Keith trucks in McEnroe's organic compost to start his vegetables in. Check it out!