You're right about the chips robbing the soil of nitrogen. Depending on what you're growing it might work. On the container forum they discuss a blend of pine bark + other ingredients. A load of the sawdust piled up & mixed with a green like grass clippings or plant waste will be good to add to your soils about a year if you turn it now & then. Sometimes, manures come with sawdust bedding, so that is a good combination to compost for further use. What kind of plants would this new raised bed be for growing? Are you filling a new bed or topping off an existing bed? A sandy loam topsoil mix + 6" organic matter would be a good way to go if you need to plant right away in this bed. Use compost or composted manures and mulch with dried grass clippings, shredded leaves, chopped straw, used coffee grounds, etc. If you're growing vegetables, you also might want to add some pumice like you said and a complete organic fertilizer. Over time you won't need as much fertilizer to grow great vegetables. Each year continue to add more organic matter to build the soil you want to use for your gardening. It takes a lot of it to keep up the soil, so it's nice to build some home compost piles for a good supply. You could also compost in place in & around your existing vegetation in perennial or shrub beds. I'm in western WA and we also have glatial till, so that when you dig a hole you get a pile of rocks. Those rocks are moved elsewhere in our landscape. Eventually the annual vegetable bed areas have become good soil for our perennial fruits like raspberries and strawberries. Our technique has varied over the years, but usually we've sheet mulched with manures and bedding in the fall piling up to 12" on a bed then turned in the spring. Plant & mulch. By summer's end it's shrunk again, so more sheet mulching. It's amazing how much organic matter is used up. In my garden boxes with wooden sides I also add compost whenever I harvest a crop then replant. In fall apply manures, used coffee grounds, and lime. In spring I've done different things different years depending on my energy level. Remove mulch to the sides before planting transplants. Rake smoothish & plant. Turn over with garden fork, rake & plant. For direct sowing seeds I rake a bit more later in spring or cover with a slight layer of screened compost to smooth out the bed. It always seems to work. For perennial and shrub mixed borders we just mounded the soil with the layers of compost ingredients and after a few months planted through the layers. We've spread mulch 2x a year since and those are much easier to work beds. Where we had existing vegetation that soil is still quite hard & rocky. As I move things around I come upon that rocky slippery stuff and add a lot more compost to a section when replanting. I hope that helps ~ Corrine

Contact your counties office of your state Agricultural Universities Cooperative Extension Service about having a good soil test done (usually in the $6.00 to $15.00 range). These simple soil tests, 1) Structure. From that soil sample put enough of the rest to make a 4 inch level in a clear 1 quart jar, with a tight fitting lid. Fill that jar with water and replace the lid, tightly. Shake the jar vigorously and then let it stand for 24 hours. Your soil will settle out according to soil particle size and weight. A good loam will have about 1-3/4 inch (about 45%) of sand on the bottom. about 1 inch (about 25%) of silt next, about 1 inch (25%) of clay above that, and about 1/4 inch (about 5%) of organic matter on the top. 2) Drainage. Dig a hole 1 foot square and 1 foot deep and fill that with water. After that water drains away refill the hole with more water and time how long it takes that to drain away. Anything less than 2 hours and your soil drains� too quickly and needs more organic matter to slow that drainage down. Anything over 6 hours and the soil drains too slowly and needs lots of organic matter to speed it up. 3) Tilth. Take a handful of your slightly damp soil and squeeze it tightly. When the pressure is released the soil should hold together in that clump, but when poked with a finger that clump should fall apart. 4) Smell. What does your soil smell like? A pleasant, rich earthy odor? Putrid, offensive, repugnant odor? The more organic matter in your soil the more active the soil bacteria will be and the nicer your soil will smell. 5) Life. How many earthworms per shovel full were there? 5 or more indicates a pretty healthy soil. Fewer than 5, according to the Natural Resources Conservation Service, indicates a soil that is not healthy. may be of some help in determining what you have. A good soil for plant growth will have between 5 and 8 percent organic matter.

I think you need to add the vermiculite also to your mixture with more peat moss. The humus/compost to way to heavy and when wet will turn to mud. I suggest using 1/3 vermiculite; 1/3 humus/compost; and 1/3 spagnum peat (as per Mel's formula) for the best draining yet moisture reserving soil. When mixed in this way, you wouldn't believe how light the soil mixture can be and how well it drains too. Don't forget, your roots need air as well as moisture. HD has the really big bags of vermiculite in the garden section. At my store it was located right across from the containers (empty pots) and right above the Miracle Gro potting soil. The vermiculite bags were a brown Kraft paper color. This worked very well for me. The vermiculite was about $10 for one of these really big bags. I made 2 - 2x8' beds and each bed took 1.5 bags of vermiculite. Also, instead of buying the compressed peat spagnum moss, I purchased the MiracleGro spagnum moss that was bagged. No clumps to deal with and it already has a little fertilizer mixed in with it and doesn't repell the water like the compressed spagnum moss does. Good luck next weekend with your beds!

Sorry I was in a hurry due to the word limit. I tried less water, I tried more water. Less sun and more sun. I tried small amounts of fertilizer. I cut more holes in the planter to make sure it was draining properly. The snails were nipping at them but that shouldn't kill off an entire vine so I treated for bugs and for fungus. Nothing seemed wrong with them other than some holes in the leaves (from the snails) and the fact they were dying. I believe it's Miracle Grow Garden Soil in the planter. The morning glories are the only thing in there except the trellis. I figured being vines they choke anything else out. Many of my neighbors have them basically growing wild. I have no idea why mine just died when they were doing so well. Any advice for next season would be appreciated.