You didn't do anything wrong. Once it gets dry, peat repels water. I don't think you'd want it to fill a raised bed, anyway, because it has almost no nutrient value in it.

The wood chips would be good as is for a top dressing, but if you're planning top plant in them, you won't have very good luck, because they're too high in carbon. If you mix them with the manure, you'll have a good compost pile. Maybe you could do it lasagna style, and create layers--a layer of chips, then a layer of manure, then a layer of chips, etc.

Don't use peat moss as a mulch, you need to mix it in so that it won't repel water.

Use the peat moss mixed with the soil, leaves and manure on the bottom instead of the top. Put the wood chips on the top.

In the Ozarks you have a lot of trees that every year drop a lot of leaves that can be used instead of peat moss and those leaves are free, so why spend money on something that will really do little for your clay when you can get lots of a product that will not only make the clay more workable but add nutrients to the soil?

Yes, i have lots of oak trees--and a chipper shredder (when I can get it started), but I was hoping the top layers could be my mixture of leaves and grass clippings.
The layering of chips and manure sound possible-but I was thinking that would make it pretty hot, wouldnt it?

Peat repels water when dry. If you take a chunk of dry peat from a sack and put it in water, it floats. If you fill a pot with dry peat and water it, the water runs off.

Once the peat has absorbed water, which takes a long time, it stays wet. For a long time. This is why I don't recommend using peat in the ground here. It rains nonstop all winter long here, so the peat will be waterlogged for 9 months. Then it doesn't rain at all in the summer, and the peat will dry out and repel water. Your plant roots will be submerged in water all winter and kept bone dry all summer. Not good.

In pots it's different as most people water their pots often enough to keep the peat from drying out all the way, and if not you can dunk the whole pot in a bucket to re-wet the potting soil.

I guess you could mix in small amounts of peat as a filler, depends on what your rainfall patterns are like there. If you already have the peat. I wouldn't go buy it for this project, as they say, you already have lots of leaves for free, why buy peat? And those oak chips sound wonderful. Mix them with manure and grass clippings to get them breaking down. yes it can get hot, don't plant directly in that mix, but if it's at the bottom the roots won't grow into it right away.

If I had raised beds to fill, I'd use a mix of bulk fill dirt or topsoil (and plan on a lot of weeds for a year or two), the chicken poo and the horse manure. If I already had peat, I'd mix that in, too, but I wouldn't spend money on it. By themselves, horse manure and peat are too lightweight to make good garden soil. If the native soil is clay, try to loosen at least the top six or eight inches, and add that to the mix. Clay is very useful - it's just hard to deal with when it's all compacted down and has no organic matter in it.

Wood chips eventually rot down and make beautiful soil, but it takes a few years. You can mix a little bit into the soil mix, but save most of these for the mulch (top) layer.

Three blocks, like concrete blocks? That is pretty high, you're figuring on about 12" or so?
I'd get some fill dirt for the first 4-6" then a layer of grass and woodchips go ahead and mix some of the fill dirt with whatever I had, woodchips and manure or whatnot. Then I might plant in a cover crop, clover maybe and let it be.
Now that I think of it I like that idea, the clover is a nitrogen fixer so next year when you mix everything together it'll be goooooood stuff.

Yes, 3 concrete blocks--its soo nice to garden sitting on the edge. I'll be 70 in 2 weeks--so I want to be able to garden for a looonngg time. and I have 20 more beds to fill--I hear the gasps already. But I do have a mountain of chips--8 chipper truck loads--and 40 acres of oak leaves. Thanks, everyone--no peat!

ceresone,
I should probably see if you would be kind enough to advise me on MY gardening efforts! You definitely have things lined out for an enviable raised bed system. I have had very good results from layering/mixing wood chips with fresh green grass clippings (from any bagger mower). A little of the clippings will go a long way toward turning your wood chips and brown leaves into rich black dirt(compost) and they are relatively easy to work with. One suggestion would be to put a few inches of chips at the bottom of a bed, followed by an inch (or so) of the green grass clippings, then leaves, then repeat layers until slightly mounded. Once things start to "cook" you may want to mix the top layers a couple of times with a mini-tiller to make sure plenty of air gets in, or just stir with a hoe. None of this is necessary as the wood chips and leaves will eventually turn into compost if just dumped into the beds...it just takes a lot longer!

A hot compost pile is one thing, I do not know if it is advisable in a raised bed because I mostly garden in the ground and a few half barrels. Personally I think that oak leaves are a real asset, but do not think much of wood chips unless I were going to pile them up and compost them over a long period of time.

Your chipper / shredder could be a definite plus if you have the time and inclination to use it. It is usually pretty slow and noisy. I have found that damp leaves clog the screen on them easily, have much better success shredding leaves with my lawn mower.

It might be worth the the trouble and expense to do a tune up or have some one tune up your chipper shredder. The one that I had untill I sold it last year, always started on the first or second pull. One thing that would probably help you to start yours , usually pretty easily, is to buy a spray can of Berryman B-12 at an auto parts store, take the air filter off, spray a little into the carb throat and on the filter, put the filter back on and they will usually start easily then. If you have not changed the spark plug, you might do that. They go bad on small engines pretty often.
Just my .02
Bill P.