One thing that Justa and I did when we first started our raised beds is we grew a cover crop of Sunn Hemp to add biomass, fixate the soil and add "green manure".

It was five and a half weeks old and 60" tall.



I ended up using the hedge trimmers and they worked great!. I started at the top and worked my way down 5" at a time.



In 10 min per box they were down.



As you can see... The inspector was back to Blue Stake for soaker hoses and to make sure they are ready to come down.

I let them set in the boxes to wilt for three days then turn under.




We waited two weeks then planted are first veggies.







The farthest way bed was my fist attempt of using plastic mulch for the tomatoes but it didn't work out too good.





What else can be done to build up the soil?