Understanding Soil Depth for Planting

By Victoria Fuller

You may be wondering whether a Cedar Planters raised garden bed or planter box is truly deep enough to successfully plant flowers and vegetables in. Surely there won’t be enough room for the root of the plant to thrive? Right? Right?! Wrong! Today we are going to dig in (sorry not sorry) to common depths of soil that the most commonly planted garden plants need to succeed!

First things first, let’s debunk a soil myth (there are so many soil myths knocking around these days): you do NOT need to replace your soil every year. This is a myth that has been promoted to us by “big soil” and it’s simply untrue! Replenishing a little of your soil every season to help boost nutrients is a good idea but all in all your soil will be fine year after year!

Next up we are going to get down to business with regards to soil depth. The majority of plants require a decent depth of soil so that they can develop a sturdy root system.

Tomatoes require around ⅔ of the plant to be buried in soil in order to ensure a well-developed root system, so if your tomato plant is 10 inches tall, bury all but around 3 inches of the plant in the soil. Cedar Planters raised garden beds and planter boxes have 12-inches of growing space so your tomatoes will have ample room to grow and thrive!

Flowering plants (like flowers!) require a root depth of around 6 inches, so a Cedar Planters raised garden bed would be perfect with its 12-inch depth.

Potatoes are a little trickier, they only need to be planted around 6 to 8 inches deep, but they need plenty of space to spread out (ae least 10-12 inches apart) so if you are considering planting potatoes in your raised garden bed depending on the size you invest in you could still have a hefty crop of these delicious fellows (here’s looking at you 72” raised garden bed!).

Herbs are quite easy-going when it comes to soil depth, as a general rule 6-inches of soil space will give the majority of herbs ample room to grow and develop a sturdy taproot, however certain herbs from the “Apiaceae family” like cilantro, dill, and parsley require up to 12 inches of growing space, so thankfully with your Cedar Planters garden bed you will never have to worry about running out of room!

Boxwoods and other shrubs have a surprisingly shallow root system so you can absolutely cultivate them in your raised garden bed, Boxwoods need only a few inches of space for the root-ball and then a few inches either side to grow, a 72-inch raised garden bed can comfortably house three Boxwood shrubs!

We hope that this blog has given you a little insight into the world of soil depth! When there’s a will there’s a way (and owning a Cedar Planters raised garden bed or planter box will provide you ample soil space with none of the gardening back-ache!).