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Soil, Compost & Mulch

free CLEAN black top soil - NOT pulverized - what do you think?

9 years ago

i found a craigslist ad for CLEAN BLACK TOP SOIL that was scraped from farm fields. this isn't fill soil and i'd like to grab some for new berms i'm creating that i'll be planting shrubs in. the source has 2000 cubic yards - so they have plenty.

question is - since it's NOT pulverized, do you think i could rototill it enough to make it "workable" so i can shape it into a berm and plant into it?

thanks!

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Comments (4)

gardengal48 (PNW Z8/9)
9 years ago
I'd want to see it before purchase. Sounds almost too good to be true (and why in the world are they scraping topsoil off farm fields??)

Depending on what you see, tilling may be completely unnecessary. What would make it un"workable"? Generally one does very little shaping with a berm other than the outline. You just dump the soil and let it assume its natural slope or angle of repose.
toxcrusadr
9 years ago
If it's very clayey soil it may be in big hard lumps. I bought supposedly pulverized silty clay last year and got some chunks the size of my head. Other than that, it shouldn't be a problem. You should go look and then you'll know the texture.

Also ask them about weeds. My sister got soil once and it was full of bindweed. Took her years to get rid of it.

gardengal: they are probably scraping topsoil to make money! Sometimes it's a new subdivision or a road, and they scrape off all the topsoil, sell off some, and put back a thinner layer after the grading is done than was there originally. Quite common. The stuff I bought was basically mined out of a creek bottom pasture, several feet down. I normally don't import soil like that for just that reason, but it was a special case.
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gardengal48 (PNW Z8/9)
9 years ago
Yes, I thought of that after I posted :-) For some reason, I had in my mind these were still functioning farms so the removal of any topsoil was mystifying. But then it occurred to me perhaps they were readying the land for new construction, which makes a lot more sense. Still unnecessary but that's how developers recoup some of their investment - selling off the soil that is maybe better left in place.
toxcrusadr
9 years ago
I do wish we built 'with the land' rather than flattening everything first, which seems to be the most common way of doing things these days. You wonder how they can make money after paying for those big yellow machines to move dirt back and forth for weeks and months before they even start building. I think the world is more interesting with some contours. But getting back to the soil aspect: our area is clay and silty clay, and it's amazing how different a native piece of ground is texture-wise, compared to reworked soil. It goes back to heavy clay texture so easily.

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