I am much in the same boat as yourself except I am just starting! I will put here what I have done and others can comment me to any errors if they wish.

First be aware that this is not ‘in ground’! It is a large, waist high, elevated bed 6’ x 4.5’ x 7" deep – a sort of large tray on a stand. I will put up a couple of large posts and pics about it a bit later – as it has come out well, or we think so anyway! It has perfect drainage!

For the soil component I first took some course sand mixed about 75% - 25% with 20 mm rock pebbles (most of the pebbles are actually smaller than 20 mm). This is the stuff they make concrete out of and that is where it came from – a builders supplier.

The sand is coarse and gritty when rubbed between the fingers and not the finer grades they make brick mortar out of that feels smooth and runs easily when dry.

I then mixed this 50-50 with a premium grade, bagged, potting mix that contained slow release fertilizers. This was a bit laborious as it was all steadily hand mixed a couple of litres at a time to ensure an even distribution via accurate measuring.

Once the soil was in the bed I mounded the plants slightly that went in so they stood a little above the main surface level. A Ό" mulch of decorative fine pebbles then went in which could go up to the base of the plants and reduce collar rot potential but be still deep enough to protect the main soil.

This is still only 3 weeks old at the time of writing and the 60 plants we have put in seem quite at home and are growing. Not a single loss so far.

Learning how to control the moisture is the main education exercise as the soil dries so quickly – plus needed setting up in the first place anyway. A moisture meter probe is proving very handy and we are keeping the bed on the border line between dry and the first graduation that is showing moisture is there.

More on this exercise later under a different post.

Aye

Phaedros