PSA: you can't screen in a raised bed with bagged soil and expect it to drain

Built three 4x8 raised beds behind my place in Reno back in April and filled them with the cheap bagged stuff from the big box store. Every single one turned into a swamp after the first real watering, and my tomatoes yellowed out in under two weeks. A guy at the local nursery finally asked what was under the soil and I admitted I'd lined the bottoms with leftover landscape fabric from a job. He said that stuff seals up like a tarp once it silts over, and sure enough, when I pulled a corner back, the water just sat there. Anyone else make this mistake, or is it just me learning everything the slow way?

1 comments

Log in to join the discussion

Log In

1 Comment

butler.finley1mo ago

Did you notice if the water sat worse in the middle of the beds or along the sides? In my experience the silt plugs up fastest right where the soil meets the fabric, so the edges seal first and the middle drains a little longer before it goes full swamp. If you do rebuild, you could try leaving a gap around the inside edge or just skip the fabric and put a layer of coarse gravel or wood chips at the bottom instead, that lets the water move down without a sheet to clog. Sounds like you already figured out the main issue though, once that fabric silts over it might as well be a kiddie pool liner.

4