How much soil for an 4X8 bed?

[Kittikity]

Um, what the thread title says..

[plantoneonme]

I know my husband has a formula that I can look up and post when I get home from work in the morning...yeah I work midnights.

How deep are your beds? With this information I will be able to tell you how many cubic feet you have.

Kim

[leydaleon]

I was asking myself the same question. I visited someone recently and asked me somehow the same and I had no idea... I hope someone can help us out with this...

[plantoneonme]

In order to determine how many cubic yards of soil you need, you measure

length x width x depth(all in FEET)=cubic feet/27
(there is 27 cubic feet in 1 cubic yard)
(a cubic yard is 3 ft x 3 ft x 3 ft)

For example of your bed is 4 ft x 8 ft x 6" (.5 ft)=
4x8x.5=16 cubic feet divided by 27
= .59 cubic yards

A bed 4ftx8ftx1ft=32 cu ft divided by 27=1.19 cubic yards

A bed 4 ft x 8 ft x 10 inches deep would be 1 yard of soil.

Hope that helps, Kim

[gardengirl72]

Nice math!

[AbbeyLehman]

So my beds are 4 X 8 X (2) stacks of 2x10s (about 18 inches or so). SOOOO...4*8*1.25 (don't want to fill them completely, cause of the coop supports) = 40 cu ft / 27 = about 1.5 cubic yards.

How much dirt is that?? I cannot visualize that at all. If I have 8 of those, plus one bed that is 3 X 16 X 1.25 /27 = 2.25ish, that's 12.25 cubic yards, plus enough for the little boxes, so that's pretty much 13 cubic yards total. What is that, like 3 dump trucks full or something????

[plantoneonme]

We received a "small" dump truck load this spring that was 5 yards. You will have to call around to see how much it will cost and how much they can deliver at one time.

Don't make the mistake I did and get plain topsoil...way too wet when raining and then dries to just under a concrete consistency. It helped a lot when I added large amounts of vermiculite but I need to ammend MUCH more. Kim

[AbbeyLehman]

Oh boy...what have I gotten myself into?? I had planned on getting something basic and amending anyway, but what suggestions do you all have? I have very little compost. Very. Little. SHould I go ahead and buy top quality garden soil? I haven't researched this yet--experienced ideas would be greatly appreciated.

ETA: Oh yeah--if you don't mind me asking, about how much am I looking at spending? All the emails I have sent out have not been returned and I'm just looking for an estimate anyway...

[plantoneonme]

I live on the border of Detroit so we have lots of places to call around so you may not have as many options. I found a place that delivered 5 yds of topsoil for $115. The average was actually from $135 to $165. I would never order straight topsoil again as it is either extremely wet or dries to almost concrete. A better quality topsoil/peat mix went for $235 and up per 5 yds and the best quality was over $300.

I would call around to farms in your area (which I did) as see if they have any composted manure. I found several horse farms that will give it away for an extremely small fee...usually $5 a scoop. Since my husband is a retired trucker, we may rent a dump truck and pick up a load. Another option I thought of was to have a tree cutting service unload their truck of wood chips. You could place those in the bottom of the bed, say 6-8" deep and then fill with soil. Eventually they will breakdown.

I am also planning on collecting as many bagged leaves in my neighborhood as dh will get (I am having surgery in Oct and will be out of commission for 8 weeks). These will be tilled into my existing soil and any extra poured as a base for new beds.

You may also want to check your community to see if they have a central place that they recycle yard waste. My brother's city gives it away for free to residents, but you have to load and haul yourself...no commercial people allowed or non residents. Unfortunately, this was not an option in my city.

I have seen topsoil/fill dirt offered on Craigslist from when people are digging basements in new construction. I am wary though since a few years ago there was someone offering not only free topsoil but to deliver at no charge. It was later found out that the soil was contaminated and from an old gas station site. The EPA had to come to as many homes as it could find and take away the soil, often deeper than before.

Hope these ideas help. Kim

[AbbeyLehman]

Wow, ok then! I guess I'd better get cracking on finishing the beds! :D Thank you for the excellent info. That price isn't as terrible as I thought it might be, so that's great.

[Kittikity]

Looks like I will be digging a big hole in my yard to fill two 5X10ft raised beds.. Then amend, amend, amend.. (Is ok though, I'm going to dig in the lowest part of my yard and make the hole a small pond..) I've always got lots of grass clippings I can add to it from my own 1.73 acre yard.. I'm going with 5X10ft beds because I'm going to use a technique called ferrocement to make the outside of my beds instead of wood.. It gets so wet here in the summer that I'm afraid wood wouldn't last very long.. The ferrocement is basically wire with cement mix smeared over it.. It's actually supposed to be quite strong.. People make large water holding tanks and even houses with this technique.. I already cut up the wire today and made the wire frames.. Monday I'm going to have hubby help me with the cement.. I only bought one bag, but will probably end up needing more.. Here is a pic of the two wire frames..

[Sinfonian]

Ingenious! Can't wait to see pics of how it turns out. I've heard of a dozen different materials for rasied beds but this one takes the cake! bravo.

[Sinfonian]

Just figured out how to read the entire thread. I've got 130 SF in 16 inch beds and it took me 6 cubic yards to fill it. Since I used Mel's Mix to fill it, I got 2 cubic feet of compost in two pickup truck loads from my local nursery and then calculated 2 cubic yards worth of vermiculite and peat moss respectively. Turned out perfect.

And if you want someone else to do the math for you, there are online soil calculators if you just search for them. That's how I figured out I needed 6 cubic yards.

[AbbeyLehman]

Looks like I will be digging a big hole in my yard to fill two 5X10ft raised beds.. Then amend, amend, amend.. (Is ok though, I'm going to dig in the lowest part of my yard and make the hole a small pond..) I've always got lots of grass clippings I can add to it from my own 1.73 acre yard.. I'm going with 5X10ft beds because I'm going to use a technique called ferrocement to make the outside of my beds instead of wood.. It gets so wet here in the summer that I'm afraid wood wouldn't last very long.. The ferrocement is basically wire with cement mix smeared over it.. It's actually supposed to be quite strong.. People make large water holding tanks and even houses with this technique.. I already cut up the wire today and made the wire frames.. Monday I'm going to have hubby help me with the cement.. I only bought one bag, but will probably end up needing more.. Here is a pic of the two wire frames..

Do you have pics of the completed beds? I'd like to see what it looks like--I wonder if I could put this on the outside of my wooden beds to extend the life of the wood....Or, it could just be cheaper to use milk paint, like Patti says....