Raised beds and soil recipes?

OK, so this year I plan to grow around 20 plants (maybe more) and was going to plant in the ground, until someone recommended I use raised beds. So, I need help with that, and soil.

1) Raised beds. How do you go about making them? I was thinking about getting some 18 inch wide , 3 foot long planks of wood, and making squares 3x3 and fill it with soil 1ft. That will give each plant 9 cubic feet to root, which should be plenty. Any ideas or tips with this?


2) Soil. So far I have come up with the idea of taking regular store bought potting soil and adding horse manure (nitrogen and trace elements), egg shells (calcium), blood meal (nitrogen), and later for flowering I would add bone meal for phosphorous. Anybody got soil tips?

the raised beds sound good and the soil sound great. i would say though instead of 20 flower beds id make like 2 or 5. id try to make them look like hedges or bushes in rows and then plant a bunch of tomatos and corn and stuff to make it less obvious.

Im a horticulturalist and when we do a raised its just mounded up sort of,no wood, where your growing sounds like you can work there if your gonna do that just use garbage cans or tree pots,i like to plant mine lower then ground level and build a small berm around it to collect water If i can ill just mix pro-mix with native soil and foilage it has all the micros and some macros in it,check your areas( heartiness zone ) if your in a 5 or 6 the soils not bad anyways just check pH,if you type hardiness zone map in your computer it should pop up,or local gardencentre books have them in the front or back,good luck bro

ive done raised beds in areas that are a little to wet in the spring i used 2x6s with joints that i bought. dont buy the joints after buying them i realized i could have used my head and put them together many ways cheaper. just like syrous said about the mounds i mounded it on top of this plus dug some underneath them. both of mine were 4x6 feet and they work well. if your in an area that people go near they will find them easily as they do stick out. i use sunshine mix its similiar to pro-mix but ive a good hook up for it. my mother is a master gardener( not ganja ) and she has all the hook ups for cheap soil, dump truck loads of compost and all goodies. anyway off track( my mind ) . horse manure works well but it needs to be composted aged before putting with your plants you dont want it if it still smells like shit. if you are in the back country blood meal will sometimes attract animals that will dig around your plants. as they think something dead is there, i think i realy dont know what the animals are thinking. high n guanos work the same and in my area it doesnt attract anything. guanos release their goods slow you may want some water soluble ferts to water with when you check them hand water with. there are lots of good companys selling good ferts go organic all the way. its harder to mess up and much better in the end.

i like the raied bed idea. im going to try it. im going to take a 5-15 gal bucket or container and cut the bottom out. and camo paint it of course. ill put some halfway decent soil beneath the bucket and till it up, and im set

well if its a guerrilla grow, then a built raised bed would stand out like a sore thumb, so it depends on what your doing. If its at home, id search craigslist for old fence,posts, lumber, or metal roofing to use as raised beds, and you can make them for free.