Putting Your Bed to Bed (for the winter).
Don’t hang up your gardening gloves just yet! Fall is the most important season for improving your soil. If soil is still warm, nutrients and organic matter in the compost stimulate micro-organisms. This is the time when you get a head start on your growing season. What you do NOW and the products you use NOW will make the difference between an OK garden and a spectacular harvest.
Recharge Your Soil this Fall.
The key to a thriving spring harvest!
Just like you charge your phone or electric car, there is a perfect time to charge your soil! Amending your raised beds with a 2-inch layer of Deep Roots Project’s microbe- and nutrient-rich compost every fall and spring is essential for a successful, healthy garden year after year. This step is not optional - it’s one of the foundations of our innovative growing method, making the difference between an okay garden and a spectacular harvest.
Why is Fall the best time to amend raised beds?
Microbial activity may slow down in winter, but it never stops. By adding compost in the Fall, you're giving your garden a protective blanket through the cold months. The compost continues to work, delivering nutrients and protecting the soil from harsh winter conditions. Plus, when the spring thaw arrives, your bed will be fully charged and ready for a bountiful season. This early preparation puts you ahead of the game!
Add a blanket of compost and leaves
After the fall harvest, push to the sides of the bed any straw you used for mulch during the growing season. Then apply a 2-inch layer of our compost to nourish soil microbes, which are vital for plant health and disease resistance. Top it off with a layer of fallen leaves to protect the compost from erosion and to add organic matter. Together, this creates a shield for your garden, preventing damage from wind, rain, and sun while feeding the soil throughout winter.
Our compost is better than store-bought soil
Not all compost is created equal. Deep Roots Project compost is made from a mix of manure and plant waste, then processed using a heat-loving microbes (thermophilic) method that maximizes microbial and nutrient density. This compost is rich in beneficial bacteria, fungi, and nutrients that commercial garden center soils simply can't match. Certified by OMRI and tested for organic food growing, it’s the best choice for growing healthy, resilient plants.
Don’t let bare soil go to waste
Remember, never leave your soil bare! Protect your raised beds by adding compost before all your annuals are harvested. If you have conventional soil, dig out a few inches to make space for the compost. Then, cover it with leaves and, if desired, a layer of landscape fabric for extra protection. This step will combat winter erosion and keep your soil microbes thriving.
Another option is to plant a cover crop of mustard in fall. See our cover crop post for more details: Cover Crops in Raised Beds.
Plant spinach and garlic in fall
Looking for a way to extend your growing season? Plant spinach in mid-November! After applying your compost, sow spinach seeds in rows, and cover with leaves. Spinach is a hardy crop that thrives through winter and will provide an early, nutritious harvest in spring. Not only will you get fresh spinach, but the plants will also protect your soil when nothing else can grow. At the end of February remove the leaves covering your spinach so they don’t block the spinach sprouts. (If you are worried you will forget to remove the leaves - then don’t cover the spinach at all.) Your spinach crop will be larger if planted in fall rather than in spring. Plant garlic in mid-October for a July harvest. Our planting garlic blog post has details.
Prepare for a spectacular spring—start now!
By taking these simple steps in the fall, you’re setting your garden up for success next year. Our compost and worm castings are designed to support the life in your soil, giving you healthier, stronger plants that are more resistant to pests and disease. Don’t wait until spring to start preparing -amend your raised beds now and reap the rewards when planting season arrives!
Amending your beds again in the spring boosts microbes and nutrients even more. Fall and spring composting is essential for long-term garden health and successful harvests year after year.
Our online store
See our online store for details about prices, ordering and delivery of raised beds, compost, worm castings and more. Please contact our customer support team before placing an order online so we can assist you with the details and answer your gardening questions.
Learn more on our updated posts
Stay in touch
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Donations help us provide organic kitchen gardening education to individuals, organizations, and entire communities. Thank you in advance for contributing to our community and for sharing our website and blog with friends and family.
Soil Health. Our Health. Planet Health.
The DRP team absolutely loves the videos on this page by environment scientist Octaivia Hopwood. The links to articles, books, and videos on our Deep Roots blog posts are not merely copied and pasted. They have been selected after hours spent consulting and evaluating literally hundreds of resources.
The DRP team absolutely loves the videos on this page by environment scientist Octaivia Hopwood. The links to articles, books, and videos on our Deep Roots blog posts are not merely copied and pasted. They have been selected after hours spent consulting and evaluating literally hundreds of resources.
Soil education helps new gardeners solve problems
Nature’s unpredictability requires the ability to troubleshoot. At DRP we believe that our full-immersion soil health education will help our organic kitchen gardeners (especially first-timers) meet unexpected challenges. We also believe that prevention is better than crisis intervention. Preparing healthy soil is the key to avoiding problems with unwanted plant diseases and harmful pests.
The narrator of all 3 videos on this page is environmental scientist Octaivia Hopwood. Although she is in a forest for the video, much of what she talks about is applicable to the raised bed environment too. Her clear explanations and pleasant speaking pace and style have made her a favorite of many nature enthusiasts (including us!). Enjoy!
THE SOIL FOOD WEB VIDEO BY 59 Degrees
Take-away from this video.
The soil food web is made up of a multitude of organisms. The environment beneath our feet is far more complex than we can even comprehend.
The simplicity of this video and the well-written narrative brings complex ideas to life. This short and sweet presentation provides a useful frame of reference for the DRP Method which puts soil health before everything. These key points of the video are taken from the video content:
The soil itself is not alive – but it is bursting with life. There is a hidden world beneath our feet.
The ecosystem is much more than just a bunch of worms and beetles.
There are in fact thousands of millions of organisms in just one teaspoon of soil.
The soil houses a complex network where each of the weird and wonderful creatures has its unique role (DRP Note: We only know about 1% of the organisms that exist and limited information about their role - and everything we know we have learned relatively recently).
The transfer of energy, carbon and nutrients from dead organic matter into new life is what it’s all about, in a nutshell.
THE RHIZOSPHERE By 59 Degrees
Take-away from this video.
Every single plant leaf is like a miniature solar panel – where photosynthesis captures light and uses it to convert carbon dioxide and water into oxygen and sugar. Simple sugars form the building blocks of plants.
Plants need more than sugars to survive – they also need nutrients like nitrogen and phosphorous and they get these essential elements from the soil.
Plant roots’ ability to obtain nutrients from the soil are often limited. The Rhizosphere is the immediate area around the root hair where plant roots and the organisms within the soil have what Olivia, the video narrator refers to as an ingenious trade-off.
Plant Succession By 59 Degrees
Take-away from this video.
Our focus in the garden is to produce vigorous and healthy plants – but we want to also be aware of our management of the soil. We want to treat our soil in a way that is beneficial to the entire planet.
This video encourages everyone to be responsible land stewards, while we are gardening we need to appreciate the ecosystems that are ever-changing around us. Changes are above the ground and beneath our feet in the soil. The biological processes within the soil are intricately connected to the ecosystem and its processes. Some key topics introduced in this video are:
Plant succession makes reference to the different plants that adapt to the gradual changes in an environment over time due to the biological processes above and below the ground.
The process of plant succession has been going on for millions of years. At each successional change, the biology within the soil adapts to the ecosystem and various changes in the environment.
Understanding succession processes are fundamental to all “growers” so they can use this knowledge to their advantage and shape soil conditions to benefit the plants they want to grow.
Soils are dominated by bacteria or fungi. They break down organic matter and add nutrients into the soil.
Some plants “prefer” a bacterial dominated environment and others grow better in a fungal dominated soil.
Soil will have either more bacteria or fungi and it is useful to know which is more abundant in order to prepare the soil appropriately for the desired plants.
Veggies like a bacterial soil and the bacteria releases nitrogen which vegetables need and love.
Don’t suck nitrogen out of the soil with synthetic fertilizers – but use rich green matter like composted manure.
Soil disturbance is unavoidable in our gardens – but it is best to keep it to a minimum
Our Innovative Food Gardening Method
Learn more in our two recently revised blog posts.
Our online store
See our online store for details about prices, ordering and delivery of raised beds, compost, worm castings and more. Please contact our customer support team before placing an order online so we can assist you with the details and answer your gardening questions.
QUESTIONS? COMMENTS?
Contact us at (708) 655-5299 or support[at]deep-roots-project.org.
Stay in touch
Please leave your cell phone number when you sign up for our eNewsletter, if you want text message announcements now and then.
Donations help us provide organic kitchen gardening education to individuals, organizations, and entire communities. Thank you in advance for contributing to our community and for sharing our website and blog with friends and family.