Best place to get lots of soil?

I'm building some raised beds for this year's (first time) veg growing. Where is a good (cheap) place to get lots of soil for a first time fill of the beds? Buying store-bought bags of soil/compost is going to cost a fortune.

Going to need roughly 8.1 cubic metres.

Even if its standard soil which I can mix in compost/manure that would be better.

I have a tiny garden with nowhere I can take soil from without putting a hole in the lawn!

 

Hi Scafell,

Local freecycle group is a good place to start. For sale boards in local shops & contact the council about the soil conditioner they make from green waste.

Compost all your kitchen waste, this will help next year.

 

I'm guessing Scafell is cumbrian (scafell pike, Cumbrian fell) if so, then our local councills green waste is being used to top an old landfill site, so is not up for sale to the public.

As Zig says, try freecycle.org and ask for soil. You could also try local stables/farms looking for well rotted manure. I did this last year and collected around 2-3 tonnes of the stuff for my new raised beds.

Steve...

 

Yup, the council is a good start.

Also, depending where you are there are clots of specialist topsoil and compost companies who will deliver as much as you want, they come in those massive 1m ^3 sacks or tipped lose.

E.g.

Compost TopSoil - Free delivery to London areas - mulch loam turf and TopSoil
General Purpose Topsoil Bulk Bagged - Springbridge Direct Ltd

 

The stables I ride at makes a fortune from gardeners!

 

I live near Swansea two years ago between me and a few others we had two loads of 17 ton delivered from Swansea council recycle centre great stuff the soil was free but it cost us each £7 transport cost.

If you collect then you have it for free but when one is having tons of it they have to have it delivered like i said we shared it on our allotment check with your council.

 

AFAIK moving soil from one site to another requires a licence because of soil born diseases and pollution, so be careful what you do. You are probably OK moving soil on the same site.

 

Is this information quite accurate? Maybe that regulation is local just to your area because of a regional alert- for example giant hogsweed or knotweed is endemic in your locale?

As I recall, official sanction for moving soil is only necessary when some notifiable contaminant has been present in the soil -pest, disease, chemical or plant.

Scafell, By all means ask your supplier where the soil is from and if it conforms to the British standard, but generally buying in topsoil doesnt require a licence.

 

Some while ago I contacted my local council (on a different matter) but it transpired they don't sell their compost to the public - since we don't have any municipal gardens or parks etc., I'm wondering what they do actually do with, but that's another topic.

Depending on where you are, there a number of companies on 'the net' offering bulk deliveries of topsoil from 15 tonnes upwards - some will sell you smaller quantities (say a pallet of 40 x 25kg bags), some will provide it in the 1m³ bags, others will dump a load from a tipper truck.

As for a licence, most of the supplies I've looked at say their soil conforms to 'BSEN 3882 : 2007 test certificate or equivalent' - which is not a licence as such, but means it's been tested to a set standard.

Topsoil in never going to be cheap, but you could possibly try somewhere where they're clearing the ground for building - although I suspect if they are willing to sell it (although usually they've already got a buyer), it would be a DIY job to take it away.

Just as a BTW - it depends on how deep your raised beds are going to be - it may pay you to consider whether the whole depth needs to be topsoil, or whether you could use a layer of something else first.

 

This was one of my new raised beds from last year, overall its around 12 foot long and at its deepest is about 3.5 feet high and its 3 foot wide.





As you see it here its full of partly rotted horse manure, I put a layer of topsoil on top (3 inches) and then planted it out, every planting hole used compost and I grew courgettes, Pumpkins, spaghetti squash, french beans, tomatos and had crops from all of them.

We have an estate car and with the back seat folded flat I could get 18 used compost bags full of manure in at a time, 2 x trips filled this large bed.

Cost: Stable is 3 miles away, manure was free to collect. One bag of compost for planting holes and a mornings work.

Steve...

 

Steve. I was just looking at your fabulous raised beds and was wondering what was at the bottom of them? Did you put them on soil or is there concrete under them? If there is concrete under them what did you do about drainage? I have a concrete garden and am wanting to either dig it up and put soil down or wondered if I could put a large raised bed, similar to yours, on top of my concrete.

 

You can see how I made these from the link under this post "My Garden Project". But this particular raised bed was placed on an old pathway once the flagstones had been lifted and moved, there was a compacted hardecore/concrete underneath the flags which I cracked with a big hammer and crowbar to allow drainage...but I left it all in situ in case I ever get rid of the bed and reinstate the pathway.

But any excess of water not going into the old pathway drains out of the bottom and continue down the slope to a drain.

Hope that helps.

Steve...

 

I have a couple of bags worth you can have if you are anywhere near Tooting.