Dirt for the garden

We worked on cleaning up the garden for the Fall. I plan on planting some cold season crops this year, so I wanted to make sure I had enough soil in the garden. I have 13 raised beds in the garden now and even though they all have soil in them, not all of the soil is very good and all the raised beds are not completely full. 

Anyway to make a long story short, we purchased some Gardeners Choice dirt from a landscaping company near us. They will load it into your truck for you. We ordered one cubic yard for around $36 which is a pickup truck load for us.

A view from the inside of the truck as the dirt is being dumped.

It took the two of us quite awhile to unload all the dirt.

The best tools were two shovels and a wheel barrel.

The soil is called Gardener's Choice since it is a screened topsoil with organic compost, manure compost and organic sand blended together with a topsoil shredder. This soil worked the best for us last year and the vegetables planted in the beds with this soil did very well. We also purchased soil from another company last year that hardened like the clay soil her in NC, so the raised beds with that soil did not do as well. We're working to amend those soils with better soil, mulch and cover crops. We learned our lesson to buy the right soil the first time. This new soil definitely has the manure in it, you can smell it.

We'll be getting one more load of soil to complete the garden beds. After this year I am hoping that we'll be able to keep up with our soil needs with our own compost bins of vegetable scraps, mowed grass, shredded leaves and chicken poop. It is for sure a work in process.