Apple Trees, raised beds and seed potatoes

Willow_K

Hi, I have couple of questions that I am hoping peeps with more gardening experience than me can answer:

I'm attempting yet again to try and grow things this year (I have a tendency to kill plants) and so far have planted some seed potatoes and onions in half barrels, carrots and beetroot in buckets, loads of spring onions in terracotta pots, various herbs and I have peppers in the cold frame.

I would however really like a raised bed. We have a lot of apple trees in our garden so we can't dig in the ground because of roots and the best place for the raised bed is actually on a patch of ground where we have an apple tree and a cherry tree as it is one of the only places in the garden that gets sun all day.

Would I be able to build the raised bed around the apple tree? It would mean that the bottom 60cm of the trunk would be surrounded by soil but the roots wouldn't affect the bed but I'm not sure if the soil would rot the trunk. I don't want to get rid of the tree because it produces really nice cooking apples.

Secondly, as stated above, I have planted some seed potatoes in some half barrels but I've only put 5 potatoes in each barrel which means I have loads left - if I put them in a black bag in the garage will they keep until next year?

Thanks in advance.
Willow x

colt

If you have to build the bed yourself why not build the bed with a square centre so that the soil will not touch the tree?

Willow_K

Great idea thanks.

So bloomin obvious - can't believe I didn't think of it! Too much sun yesterday I think :rotfl:

BB1984

Sorry but this is a really bad idea. Raising the soil level under a tree is very likely to kill it - for one thing the trunk will rot.

However, even if you do as the previous poster suggested, and don't allow soil to touch the trunk, you still have to be very careful. I only found this out recently, but the vast majority of a tree's roots are very tiny and near the surface. They need oxygen and nutrients, and you stop these things reaching the roots if you increase the soil level over them.

I'm not sure on how far you should go from the trunk, but as far as I'm aware, it's the further the better. You'll have to do some more research, but I'd guess that you'd want to leave at least 1m (i.e. a 2m diameter circle) from the trunk.

BB