Filling Your Garden Bed

When it comes to filling your garden bed, or just your garden, the first step is to find out how much you need. Soil is measured in either cubic feet or cubic yards. To figure out how many cubic feet you will need, multiply your width x length x depth.

For example: My garden bed is 4 feet wide by 8 feet long, and 14 inches tall, but I only wanted to fill it to 12 inches. To figure out my square footage I multiplied 4x8x1 which gave me 32. I needed 32 square feet of soil to fill my bed.

If you are getting your soil from a place that sells in cubic yards, you want to multiply width x length x depth, then divide by 27 (the number of cubic feet in a cubic yard).

For example: For my bed I would multiply 4x8x1, then divide by 27.  This would give me about 1.2 cubic yards.

While building your bed can be relatively cheap, filling it can become pricey, so plan ahead! If you are capable of buying your soil by the cubic yard, this can be cheaper. This is the best option if you are looking at about a cubic yard of soil, or more. If you are able to pick it up yourself in a truck, then it's even better! If you are not able to pick it up yourself, then most places will have a delivery fee. If you are in need of a lot of soil (over 3 cubic yards) then you are better off paying the delivery fee; however, if you are like me and only need about a cubic yard or less, that delivery fee just might not be worth it.

When you are not looking at a lot of soil, then I recommend buying by the bag. Do your research though, and price check your stores! If you are like me and have no way of picking up your topsoil by the cubic yard, you might want to look at bags. At my store of choice I was able to find 3 cubic feet bags of topsoil as well as compost. I needed 11 of these (which you can see in the picture above!), and found that it was cheaper to buy 11 bags (7 topsoil and 4 compost) than to buy by the cubic yard, and pay for delivery. The choice is yours!

What to use?

Topsoil: This is about the first 2-8 inches of the earth's crust and contains many rich nutrients, minerals, composted material and microorganisms that are extremely important to the growth of your veggies and other plants.

Compost: This is made up of organic material from plants and animal matter that has been decomposed. Compost is very rich in nutrients and is usually mixed in with your topsoil. It can be a soil conditioner, a fertilizer and even a natural pesticide for your soil. If you are going to mix your topsoil with compost, 1/3 compost and 2/3 topsoil, or half and half should do the trick. Compost can be made at home, and pretty easily too! Here's a great site that gives detailed instructions on how to make your own compost http://www.composting101.com/how-it-works.html

Fertilizer: This is a soil addition that is used for the promotion of plant growth. It's main nutrients are nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium and is usually mixed into the top of your soil. The amount of each nutrient can be found on the front of your fertilizer bag, in the above order. When shopping for a fertilizer, keep in mind that different veggies need different amounts. While spinach requires high amounts of nitrogen, too much of it can cause carrots to become too hairy.

Once you've decided on what to use (I used a combination of the three), and how much of it, you are ready to fill and begin planting!