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I'm about to connect two existing beds with a new raised bed that'll have a roughly 10' x 6' footprint. I'm ready to kill & cover the grass completely with cardboard from Amazon.com boxes, and I have eight big trash bags full of shredded paper to pile on top. The landscaping contractors who mow the neighborhood grass supply me with all the grass clippings my heart desires, so the shredded paper will get enough nitrogen-rich goodness on top to avoid robbing nitrogen from the finished bed. Lastly, I've got about 5 cubic yards of finished compost lined up to top it all off.
Then it occurred to me that this is going to be 100% organic material. I don't want my nice new raised bed to sink down and flatten out after the organic matter decomposes. I've always read here that healthy soil needs a mineral component, which I've neglected in this plan so far.
So here's where I'd love your opinions. Do you think I should address this by mixing gravel in with the rest of my raw materials? Coarse sand? Topsoil? Wait 'til the leaves fall and dump a bunch on top before winter? How about using deep-rooted cover crops, letting them do the work of mining minerals from the nasty clay soil that lies 3" under my lawn? Perhaps some combination of the above? None of the above?
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