Soil for my raised beds???

[Novice Gardener]

I've been working on getting my plot cleared, and I'm almost there now. I dug out 5 beds first of all and I've had some lovely bits from them, I dug over the rest of the plot and have been keeping that weeded and for the rest of the plot I'm planning on putting in some fruits like raspberries, redcurrents etc along with 4 raised beds (only because I got given 4 preformed raised beds). I'm thinking of using one for asparagus then the other 3 for things like carrots, onions, garlic & salads bits but I'm not sure what soil to fill up with. I've dug the ground over and the soil seems good and I'm planning on going to B&Q tomorrow and getting some bags of soil but I'm not sure what soil to buy. The beds are about 8 inches deep and when I dug them over there were plenty of worms in the soil. I've not got any compost thats ready, so whatever I use I'll need to buy. Any advice is welcomed

[Two_Sheds]

You can buy topsoil, but beware - it might be full of weed seeds.
You can buy multi-purpose compost, which will not be full of weeds, but will cost you a pretty penny.

What I would do, is garden with what you have, and just gradually add well-rotted compost each year. You don't need to have full beds at the get-go

[Novice Gardener]

Thanks two sheds, its all starting to come together now

[PAULW]

NG
When I first started I did a raised bed, first I dug out the soil to a spit deep then filled with well rotted manure and back filled to soil I had taken out on top leave till spring and turn over.

[Novice Gardener]

I can get plenty of fresh manure - not well rotted - would it do any harm if I spread a layer of the fresh stuff on, then left it covered over for the winter?

[PAULW]

NG
You can do that, the only thing is if you have a compost bin of NEW manure after a time it will reduce in capacity to less than halve when it rots down, if you were to use well rotted manure it has already gone through this process so after the winter the beds would look pretty much the same as when you filled them, with the fresh they will sink, but then again any muck is good muck

[Stacey Steve]

If you feel that you want to raise up the level of soil in your raised beds, you may want to use the method I have.

I turned over the soil one spit deep, removed all the roots I could. I've got clay soil so I added multi compost and dug it over several times, each time removing more debris. Each bed is approx 3.5m x 1m and I added 4x 75lt bags to each. It has made weeding a doddle & broken up the soil nicely.

My first compost bin is now ready, so at the end of the season I will add that to the first 4 beds, next year's will then go into the next 4 beds, so on each year working up the plot. I've got 16 beds so far.

I've found that the cheapest multi compost around here is from Wickes at 4 75lt bags for a tenner.