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Old June 2, 2015   #1
habitat_gardener
Tomatovillian™
 
Join Date: Apr 2008
Location: California Central Valley
Posts: 2,543
Default tree roots in the garden bed

The house I moved to last year was all weeds, except for one raised bed that the owner had built but not used much a year or so before. Since last year, we've sheet-mulched the whole yard, front and back, and built a greenhouse and 2 more raised beds. Those two new beds are now fully planted with tomato and basil plants.

I was getting ready to plant that original raised bed last week. But when I started to dig a hole, it was full of roots. I investigated and found the roots were coming up from the bottom of the bed. Then I looked about 10 feet over and saw the source: a cherry plum tree (probably planted by the birds)!

So I've started digging through the whole bed to remove the worst of the roots. In addition, I'm going to dig a root moat, about a foot deep, between the plum tree and the raised bed, and fill it with very coarse mulch (the 6-inch pieces that didn't quite get chipped). I'm also going to put some cardboard or newspaper at the bottom of the raised bed (it has hardware cloth on the bottom, but it'd be too difficult to remove it to dig out roots). Then I'll add some more soil and compost to the bed and plant.

Am I wasting my time?

I may get around to installing a better root barrier by the fall (sheet metal? Or removing the tree?), but I need to plant the rest of my plants somewhere in the next week or so.

Oh, and meanwhile, I've had my eye on the hackberry tree that's about 20 feet from the 2 new raised beds. Hmm...

What with the front- yard hugelkultur bed and the proposed root moats in the back, the neighbors will probably be wondering just how many bodies are buried here!
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