Raised Bed Topped Off With Composted Manure - May 2025

The small raised vegetable bed on our patio is home to a couple of tomato plants and some herbs every growing season.  Those plants pull the nutrients out of the soil pretty rapidly, so each Spring I need to top-off this bed with some new organic material.  Below, is a photo showing the pre-topping-off state of the raised bed showing some left-over stems and other leaf litter.  

This being a vegetable bed, I'm careful with what I put in here - so this year (like last year), I opted to use a bag and a half of composted manure - brand name Moo-Nure.  I've used this in various beds in the garden to improve the soil conditions and to provide a nutrient-rich plantingbed.  See below for the Moo-Nure bag:

This stuff is R I C H, so I opted to spread out the bag and just leave the bed to sort-of "mellow out".  I'll plant this up in the coming week-or-so, but will allow the composted manure to aerate-and-chill for a couple of cycles before adding the plants.  Below is the raised bed with the recently-topped-off composted manure:

I'm planning on two tomatoes and two herbs in this bed this year, but maybe we can tuck in a couple more things, too.