Just moved into a rented house, and am keen to get my kitchen garden up and running. Test digging has revealed that the area behind the house (loath to use the word garden) has only two or three inches of soil over masses of broken stone that looks like very old builders rubble (house was once a dairy, garden is the old yard; rubble looks like demolished structure of some description).

Raised beds would therefore seem to be the way to go. Thinking about railway sleepers, largely on basis of visual appeal but also as a relatively simply constructed way of keeping a large mass of soil in situ. New untreated ones are freely available, but at a price (around £25 each!), so the fewer I could use the better. A single sleeper on it's side would give a raised bed depth of 250mm (10"). Do people think that would be enough depth of soil? I'd like to grow a fairly wide range of veg, salads, and soft fruits.

Advice/suggestions welcome.

Alan