What soil?

[Borisbump]

Sorry if this is the wrong place to post this sort of question but I'm new here.

I've got some scaffold boards from my local scraffolding company and the other half is setting them up this weekend for my veggie raised bed. However and this may seem really quite a stupid question, where am I going to get enough soil from to fill it?

Surely not loads of bags of compost from the garden centre?

I think it's about 4 foot square.

Thanks in advance for any help given.

[JimmerG]

4'x 4' shouldn't take too much to fill - (is it one board high?) If you stick it on open ground you could dig over the soil underneath it and fluff it up at bit, that could fill half of it - then depending on what you want to grow... you could get a big bag of compost, a bag of top soil and bag of sand and maybe some nice manure from somewhere, or indeed some home made compost... mix it all together and bingo, one full frame. Shouldn't cost more than £10 if you get it from the garden centre. But it will quickly settle down and need a bit of a top up, once its been rained on.

J

[Borisbump]

Thank you JimmerG. It's actually 5 foot square and yes one board high.

We have a compost bin that's been on the go for a couple of years and can be used, had a look yesterday and it's a gorgeous dark colour. We have some top soil that needs sieving out from another garden project.

So I guess I only need to get some manure and sand, we have quite a few farms I could get manure from, but is that okay? The sand shouldn't be a problem.

I want to grow, carrots, cauliflowers, leeks, onions, beans and peas to start with.

Thanks for replying I really appreciate it.

[SarzWix]

You shouldn't put manure in the place you want to grow carrots, it makes them fork You could top up the carrot part with some bagged topsoil? They quite often have it on offer in the GC at this time of year, 4 bags for price of 3 etc.

[gojiberry]

Raised beds don't have to be filled to the top all in one go. Plan to do it over a couple of seasons just by adding well rotted manure and home made compost. If you are going to add sand make sure that there are no salts in it as in builders sand.

Ian

[bobleponge]

What Gojiberry said. I have a few beds and only one of them has been filled to the top. Will take me another couple of years yet, but as long as your soil underneath isnt too dreadfull you can dig that over, and mix in whatever else you have in there. Will be fine for most things.