beautiful garden, jonhughes. what are you using for soil? i am starting a veggie garden from scratch in a new home. planning to do raised beds with trucked in soil as the native soil is clay and poorly drained.

Yeah, Mine is clay too, so I manufacture my own recipe, I dig down four feet (it's nice to have an excavator ;-), and mix in equal parts of Clay,decomposed Granite,Steer Manure/Grass and Leaf Compost, Pumice, mix it all up, fill in the beds and top dress from now till eternity with my home made compost.

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Haha, nice job jonhughes! That would be overkill for me.

"Topsoil" is simply the top 4 to 6 inches of soil scrapped off someplace and may be something worthwhile or it may be nothing at all. Prior to buying any "topsoil" you need to take a good look at it to see if it is what you want, and again when it is delivered to be sure it is what you bought.
Many people have in mind, I have found from talking with many people, that "Topsoil" is loam and it is not. What you should look for is a good quality soil containing about 45 percent sand, 25 percent silt, 25 percent clay and around 5 percent organic matter which is what loam is but since loam is not found every where is not readily available.

wow! what a fabulous garden!! i love the use of the space- right down to the(i think) leeks!
thats exactly what i,m using for the wire mesh!
yea! i feel like i'm on target.
if all goes well the next project will be uploading photos ;)
thank you!!

thanks kimmsr- i'll try to find a good blend to include. that way i'll give it a good solid start.

Jon, does your wire never wear out? I use the same wire and the gophers eventually get through (or over, not sure!)
I'm having to dig up the first bed I started with after 10 years, and another might have been invaded after only about 4 years (they may have climbed over, though)
It would sure be tough to move all those cement blocks!
Nancy

Your funny... (move the blocks ;-)

I hope they don't wear out, That would be a pain.... not as much as for you, since I own every tool known to mankind and have wonderful laborers to actually do the labor work ;-)

But it would still be a pain....in theory ;-)

But I'm thinking not... I purchased the thickest 1/2" Galvanized welded wire I could find, and I have the most gnarly yard cats (they work for snacks ;-)
I don't feed them,if they want to eat,they are on their own, and they are some fat cats BTW ;-)

I think if the rodents ever come around again.. they will find no easy pickings ;-)

First off.... they would have to get by my concrete footings, and if they do manage that trick, they "hopefully would not get by the wire which is concreted into the footing and walls.

Here is a link that might be useful: Building the raised beds...see all nine videos

Since such a sized planter box would take just under 2 cubic yards of soil, thinking compost, could be an expensive one so the use of how you consider your 'good' topsoil sounds about right.
Amending such topsoil could come in the form of sand, peat moss, loam/triple mix if found wanting.
Just make sure your box drains well.

if my top soil is loam
does that mean I actually don't have top soil?

"....whatever that term "topsoil" means nowadays..." Maybe you need something like this:

Here is a link that might be useful: Topsoil standard

Just my 2 cents:
I recently removed the soil from my garden beds because of topsoil. Gardner placed "topsoil" into the bed and it started to burn my plants. (it was a mix with other things but mainly topsoil) I called up the soil company to find out about their product. Their "topsoil" is enriched and only for lawn (raising, setting up etc..) not for medium planting. As you someone said it is a good idea to make sure the topsoil you are using is good for planting and doesn't require you to wait 6-8 months in the garden beds before you plant.

thanks all- the top i bought- yep, i paid 2$ a bag- is a very well known brand with peat mixed in. i'd say about 40% of the load will be that. the other 60 % is a very aged - (2 season), horse manure straight from the farm. I'll also toss in a little sand and an organic fert to be sure all the micros are accounted for. sound ok?
this will be for onions, beets maybe carrots. all this to maybe get something the voles didn't eat through first
!

Having an excavator does make the task very easy, I had been thinking about option where I could do away with having an excavator and still be able to get be cinder blocks done. Seems like I will have to rent one from one of the local construction equipment rental companies.

flora, the information about the UK Standard for "topsoil" is interesting but tells us nothing, except that a standard does exist.
Laura, what you bought is not soil, but qa soilless mix. Soil must have some mineral, sand, silt, clay, content to be soil.

Laura, your garden should grow great in that. Just keep in mind that if the bags of topsoil had compost in them, plus another 60% of the mix is fresh compost, that is a very high organic content. All that organic matter will continue to break down and the level will sink over time. You might have to come back and add more topsoil next year if the level is not where you want it. Nothing wrong with that, just didn't want you to be surprised.

thanks everyone for the 2012 follow-up. For the record- 2011 grew like crazy. I used a little more top-soil then planned. Beets did well so I tried 1 tomato plant and had so many cherries I needed 3 stakes to hold it up. There were also onions and carrots that over-wintered thanks to our easy NE winter and are still going strong. I have the beds planted again after refreshing the soil. I ended up using LI top soil, manure and a good dose of a dry organic fertilizer blended in.
Jonhughes- those photos still inspire! Happy Growing All!

oops! I totally missed the fact that nicktarabay had resurrected a year-old thread. Haha.

Sounds like it went great for you!