Making up a raised bed

[Jinxycat]

Howdy, Newbie here, joined today. *waves*. I am keen as mustard but very much a beginner.

I have bought a raised bed kit, and plan to site the raised bed in my garden where there is currently a big mound of soil that was dug out for a shed base and left, pending somebody coming along and moving it. Which didn't happen. This big mound of soil is now covered with grass and weeds (some pretty, I grant you ). My question is, can I use this soil, once I have de-weeded and taken out all the grass - most likely by getting rid of the top section? Or would it be better to get rid and start anew with some fresh compost and manure? I want to grow runner beans in the bed.

[taff]

Why pay for stuff to fill it when you already have soil? Unless you have compost and manure....
Errr...anyway, use the soil, take out the weeds and big stones, add manure, presto! bean bed

[chris]

Welcome to the vine !

I'd use the soil (take the grass off in sections, turn it upside down and stack it somewhere for a year odd - it'll rot down into a beautiful loamy soil ).

I'd mix in a bag of compost from the shop. Adding manure is good too, but recently there was an issue with a systematic weedkiller that was used on fields that horses grazed on, which made its way into manure sources - it caused a lot of problems!

I grew all sorts of beans just from plain old compost from the shop... a year later and I've two compost bins full of my own lovely home made stuff