Fall is always a great time to start thinking about prepping for next season's planting. The intervening months allow sufficient time for composts and other amendments to meld well with garden soil or whatever to provide a uniform planting medium and encourage a lot of happy beneficial soil critters.

Couple of thoughts.......if you are going to enlarge with another raised bed - an ideal way to go, btw - leave a decent space between the new bed and the existing one for mom and any equipment to navigate easily. The optimum width for a raised bed is 4' - this allows easy access from either side for weeding, maintenance, harvesting, etc. without overextending your reach. An important point, especially for seniors.

As to the soil needed, it appears you have compost going, so use whatever you can of that. Add whatever fall leaves you can gather and any other 'green' scraps. If this season's veg were healthy (no obvious disease issues), chop up and add their remnants as well. You will need some soil as well, either from a spare stash in the garden or purchased bagged soil. You want to fill the bed quite deeply now, as the material will decompose and settle some over winter. Make sure the soil component is the final layer, as it will act as a covering for the vegetative matter to hasten decomposition and amalgamation.

You can add whatever amendments you may feel necessary but generally just a mix of compost/organic matter and soil is sufficient to develop a decent planting mix. Ideally you want a ratio of about 35% organic matter to 65% soil but exact proportions are not that critical.

I would also consider covering the entire planting area once prepped for the winter with some sort of thick mulch, like straw (often available in even very urban areas for Halloween and harvest decor). The mulch will prevent a lot of weed development as well as guard against erosion over winter from wind and weather. Just rake it off and add to compost materials before spring planting time.

gardengal48,

Thank you for the detailed reply. Sorry I did not reply sooner, but I had a little issue with some cantankerous....grass?

The short story is that these patches of grass have been driving me nuts for the past few years because they won't grow!!. So I have been messing with them for the past few days. I don't know if I got it right this time, but I worked them down!

But...back to your message...........I appreciate it. I guess we are on the right track for the most part. with the spring and all.

This is all great stuff you posted and I will go through it.

Thanks!!

Joe