For more videos about raised bed gardening check out this playlist: kzfaq.info/sun/PL812xhuxJaclJKMHKJdNHzt7jROvfKd1R

The Bob Ross of the plant world

Thank you for such an informative option for raised beds. The recent loss of my husband has left me with empty gardens and an empty heart. I am not able to take on the enormaty of his established gardens and wanted downsized options. Our children built me raised beds from wood scrapes and now i know exactly how to fill them without huge out of pocket expense. So glad i stumbled on your channel. I think it was my husband who put you in my path. God bless you and yours. I look forward to watching and learning more. ❤

Another thing to help with the bulk is deciding to dig a pond. Not only do you get dirt for your mix (for free) but you also have a place to keep fish for an additional food source.

I was shocked at the price of peat moss this year. I just bought a bag that big for $22 Canadian! Terrible. I remember buying it for $8 Canadian! I think just last year it was about $16. Inflation is making gardening and self sustainability even harder! That’s why videos like yours are so important! Thanks so much!!

I like the way he speaks slowly and clearly for those who are new to gardening, as well as raised beds

Thanks for sharing this info. I have been doing the "free method" for years and getting wonderful results. When I moved to North Carolina in 2007 I discovered the development had been built over a tobacco farm - not very conducive for vegetable gardening. By 2009 my neighbors were commenting about how black my garden soil was and still is today. I buried pine, oak, pecan tree limbs from our yard with grass cuttings, peat moss, compost from our kitchen, manure, egg shells etc. I built simple cages to compost from chicken wire and zip ties and dumped everything into them. Over the years, occasionally, I would add a mix of top soil and a bag of garden dirt. It does work! In the beginning I wasn't sure how to set up everything so I used huge planters and moved them accordingly. When I relocated the planters, I discovered the grass underneath was dying which made it easier to dig up and put a plant (normally tomato) with dirt in the spot. Last year we moved to an area with red clay. Doing the same thing and my garden is already producing!

I fill the bottom 1/3 of my beds with wood chips from the local arborist. We just had 40 yards of chips dropped off for free. I like that you explain that lots of “topsoil” doesn’t contain actual soil. We get bulk topsoil mixed from sand and compost from a local aggregate company. They make amazing soil, and it’s much cheaper in bulk.

My Ex-Wife used to go to all places that served coffee and get their coffee grounds for free. Worms grow and mate like crazy and she ended up with thousands of worms in her raised beds which create holes for better drainage in the soils. So use lots of card boxes and coffee grounds for fantastic gardens! And chicken manure.

I am 70 years old and have not gardened before now. I am very grateful for your time and expertise to read my numerous questions and your (place dozens of affirmations and adjectives here!) very educational responses. Thank You.

It looks like I'm going to be a professional farmer while I'm quarantine at home

Terrific video Scott. I live in Daytona Beach, Florida. I go to the beach regularly and pick up free dried seaweed. I wash it down , get the sand out and incorporate it in my beds around September. By February, the bed is ready and on fire. I actually use the exact same method you use. I do sprinkle some bone meal 2 weeks before planting. I will try to incorporate some peat moss later this year like you suggested. I think it will help with the drainage. Thank you again for educating us. God Bless you and your family.

I use course sand in the bottom half mixed with soil. It cost me 13 bucks a trucks load, enough to do 2 beds or a garden area. This does 2 things. Gives really good drainage and adds trace elements to the soil that it often lacks. I also line the wood inside with thick plastic to keep water from decaying the wood over time.

Thank you so much Scott!! I love your thorough explanation and believe it is important to know the "whys" of anything you are involved in, not just the "how to". Don't change your style of teaching, many of us like to know why. One day those who only know half the story will only reap half the rewards then wonder why. Thanks again!!

Clear, concise good common sense. People need to hear more like this. A lot of people never "get it" and just go buy crap from a big box store and then wonder why their garden doesn't flourish

Thank you. You solved two of my problems at once, filling my beds and eliminating my brush pile.

Personally, I like free. So I fill the bottom half of my 4x 24 x32 inch planter box with wood chips which I get free from a local arborist. They have to pay to dump so if I take all of their 10 to 12 cubic yards of ground-up tree they are more than happy to deliver. Next, I find a horse stable and a dairy ranch and again they have an abundance of fertilizer and will gladly give me all that my heart desires then I rent a front end loader and blend the piles together and that is my base and the chips will decompose fairly fast but not overheat the beds. Then the top 6 inches is compost an Bi-Mart sells 3 cubic foot bales for $10 and I top it off with that when I run out of my own.

There's nothing better than saving money and growing food. #TFS

Really good breakdown there and reminding people what they can do when approaching gardening. We've used truck loads for DIRT, and usually DIRT is what we get or it's mostly DIRT and that's what you need for the top, and then you can mix whatever stuff you want to add organic material and that's what I like to do and you don't get all that sinking and that DIRT is partially what holds the life while it eats that organic material. Then it's just a matter of mixing and doing a soil test to see if there's any amendments you need to have the right minerals the plants need.

I built 2 4x6 by 22ft tall beds this year. Went to my local nursery for a a pickup truck load for $55. Mix of forest mulch and soil. Yep, shovel work, but much easier from standing on the bed of my truck rather than a wheelbarrow. And a lot of $$$ saved. Next year, I'm adding two 4x8 x 2ft tall beds.

I had huge planters at each corner of our in ground pool. Over in the shade of a mulberry tree I placed our rabbit hutch and run up on cement blocks. Every fall I would rake out that rabbit poo and add it to the planters. It composted down all winter and in summer when I added the annuals..... Huge, beautiful flowers every year.

I was trying to figure out how many bags of soil needed for my plants when happened to see this video. So glad to learn about this amazing method before trimming my tree branches and buying soil (planned to do it tomorrow). This will definitely save me at least half of the costs. Thanks for sharing!

I have a buddy who has 3 thoroughbred horses. He composts the manure from his barn in some large compost bins and it comes out soooo nice. Black, rich, organic material. I get a trailer load or two every year to add to my garden and the one raised bed that I have. I built the raised bed with some old porch posts that I had replaced with Aluminum and filled the bottom with very old dry rotted fire wood and some of that compost. Then added some bulk mix that I had purchased. Worked great the first year and each year I just add some compost and turn it over with a shovel. Great video! Keep on keepin on.

I was lucky when I started to garden as I had two books I had read, one was about lasagna gardening, the layering of different types of organic material, such as, leaves, twigs and branches, grass clippings, pine needles, wood chips, shredded newspaper, manure, chopped up corn shocks, coffee grounds , chopped eggshells, cardboard, toilet paper and paper towel rolls, and then your own mixture of the soil you actually wanted to plant in for the top with mulch around what you planted to eliminate weeding and retain moisture. 'The other book was about square foot gardening. I had great luck combining the knowledge in the two books and my first experiences in gardening just whet my appetite to learn more. Since then, I have studied the Garden of Eden method and subscribed to magazines such as Organic gardening. Now the world of KZfaq has made so much more knowledge available. I turned an area that was inhabited by huge norway pine trees into a lovely shade garden where the soil I made between the trees by lasagna gardening created wonderful black dirt with so many large earthworms in it that I only had to dig one shovelful of dirt to find enough worms to go fishing with all day. The secret ingredient for that sucess was cardboard layers as it seems that earthworms love to eat the glue that is in the cardboard. I created a lovely shade garden of mostly perennials there. This year I will be using a combination of hugelculture and lasagna gardening in layered containers as now that I am old I need to keep my work area about waist level due to my bad back. I am learning to create my own fertilizer. It should be fun.....check Robbie and Gary Gardening Easy here on KZfaq.

This is so accurate and people don’t realize how much it actually takes!

I've been filling the bottom half with local dirt from construction sights where they dug out a basement and made a mountain of dirt next to it. My municipality actually has a place that dirt goes and people take from that. It's heavy in clay and far from ideal but when mixed with better stuff, it helps fill that bed with what people who plant directly in the ground are using. I live in southwest Wisconsin, we grow a lot of food in less than ideal soil.

I agree and kind of practice this approach. Burying compostables in soil is a great way to attract and feed earthworms and build up healthy garden soil. Though, it's wise to be mindful of which things release NPK as they break down, and which ones eat up NPK in the soil. (Ex: too much wood can initially eat up too much nitrogen, and release it much later, but the right amount Is beneficial to soil composition and aeration). I just spent a day slogging in muddy clay that wouldnt drain from a 4'x4' terraced bed, despite adding several 5 gal. buckets of compost. I finally alleviated my colorado clay/drainage issue in my veggie garden by mixing in my bolted spinach pieces, grass leaves, torn up news paper, dead branches and torn egg crates with the soil. Then, tested again with water and FINALLY had fluffy soil that drained easily!🥳 it's definitely good advice to use your readily available organic matter and amend it with preexisting soil to save $, and I'd add to use cover crops that restore nutrients and build up soil too. Otherwise, I have always bought in bulk from a local dirt yard after inspecting their soil blends & composts in person. After a while, with this "free soil" approach, you'll have to remove fertile fluffy soil from over flowing garden beds, and that will be a good problem to have for sustainable gardening practices. :)

I roll cardboard to fill the bottom 2-4 inches of planters. Makes them lighter and it will compost and sink over time, allowing you to add some fresh mulch and good soil. Same idea as putting branches at the bottom of a raised bed, with the bonus of making planter buckets lighter and drain better. P.S. 8x4 feet just reminds me I have a cord of wood to stack... Thanks Scott >:I

I like the way he speaks slowly and clearly for people who don’t math very good.

I think we’ve all found the Bob Ross of gardening.

I think it is a good idea by cleaning your surrounded areas to collect fall leaves, branches, weeds, grass clippings, and make them ready for the next planting season. Therefore, you can both keep your place clean , and save money from buying soil for gardening. Thanks sir!

I used to be annoyed by these big plants that grew out behind my garage with huge leaves on them that grew pretty quickly as well. Now I will harvest all this wild goodness for soil enhancement purposes!

Actually, the mass never changes......the volume may decrease, but the mass does not. Excellent video! Very helpful.

Collect pinecones, fill half of the box with them. Slow to decompose, hold moisture well, and my plants love it. Next layer would be leaves, compost, egg shells. Then I would add bags of manure, a little triple mix on the top. Works for me.

Finally! The best advice on soil that makes sense. Thank you so much! Paying for growing soil is a drag.

Years ago I bought 16 bags of “Sea Soil” that were recommended by my local garden shop. I was extremely disappointed as 60% of each bag was wood, rocks and pieces of plastic. I ended up using my dirt screen to remove most of the garbage and filled 2 large Rubbermaid garbage cans with the crap that I removed. To make it worse the wood pieces that went through the dirt screen attracted ants which turned into a very bad ant infestation in my greenhouse. It took me 3 years to get rid of the ants by covering the entire surface of the soil with 1 inch of coffee grounds throughout the entire greenhouse. I wish that I had seen this video 4 years ago. Thanks for another great video.

Just filling two 4 x 8 x 11" raised beds. This was great info, thanks. I will fill to 8" this year and add next year. Lots of good info here!

I have covered the bottom of my raised beds with layers of cardboard (from carton boxes) and I have discovered that these are loved by earthworms, which do a great job of breaking down organic matter. I've never seen so many earthworms in such a small area of soil, keeping the soil in my raised beds nice and aerated. My vegetables grow marvellously well. I've had a great harvest of "French beans" in that particular bed. ... I like your videos, very instructive and well made. Take care Gardener Scott .

Why couldn’t I have found this channel a week ago after spending $400.00 at my local nursery. At least I supported the little guy and not the big box. Oh well.

I loved your video. And I liked how your so to the point and not wasting my time hearing about your family or friends that I don't know and will never meet. Thank you from BLACK CANYON CITY , ARIZONA.

So this year I built the beds! I got some Sta-Green mix at Lowes for about $12 for 2.5 CF. I mixed in sand I found alongside the road in neighborhoods. It runs off of their yards and mixes with decaying leaves. Great stuff that's free. Then I added the compost and biochar. My cost for a 4x8x18" was around $25, as I only used two bags. Another secret is to build in 2x6 tiers as I did, and add as you build upwards. Each time you lay another course, mix in more of the free stuff and you're good to go.

Planning our beds now - perfect timing to see this!

I did option 3 to top off my beds this year. Filled them for free last year, all it cost was a lot of sweat.

Love that.Yes am gardening again.Have had large garden beds like that.pls dont forget .use of rabbit and guinea pig manure x hay straw etc...Now have hanging baskets for my peas.and two raised beds for silverbeet and baby carrots.Rest is huge pots for potaties and pumpkins and last growing well herbs and sring onions and garlic.I feel better this year growing our food for our table etc.Even my daughter was impressed about the 20 baby cherrie tomatoes for her salad.🍓🐇🐇🐇

Omg 15 bucks plus tax here in Canada for organic maricle grow dirt lol so would cost a lot of money to fill that bed !!! I use lots of stuff to fill my beds ..I use leaves , grass clippings, kitchen stuffs ect…❤

I was thinking $500. $300 sounds affordable in comparison. But $0 is perfect.

Your math was better than my actual math teacher . 😂

I'm excited to build & fill our raised beds this year. We are in the San Luis Valley in Colorado, just north of the Great Sand Dunes. The "dirt" on our property is mostly very alkaline, very fine sand. So, we'll definitely have to start with branches, twigs, leaves, etc. My sister is giving me chicken poop, and we've had our compost bin going all winter.

Hay is a good filler. You can get a couple bails for about 15 bucks and it takes up a ton of space. Also provides nutrients. Just added compost we made, a little peat moss, a little manure and the cheap top soil.

Thank you for the advice and insight! Trying to more self sufficient at my homestead.

That is such a good idea! I have a bunch of branches that i needed to get rid of and i’m planning a garden for this summer so this is just perfect! Thanks for the idea

Great suggestions. Thank you for taking the time to produce and share your video!

Wow this was Gold I can’t wait to get started on my garden beds, i will definitely follow you to learn more. Thx

I have a 2x2x14' bed in my greenhouse. In early fall I was heading out to the farm to get more (free) compost, while I was driving there, I noted people in the residential area were putting out the paper leave bags. I realized that it was too early for Oak leaves, and most of the bags were going to be Maple. After I picked up a landscaping trailer full of compost, stopped on the way home and pulled over to check out the bags. Most were Maple, a few ,I passed over, were Pine needles. Got home and poured the 16 bags into my bed, it filled to about 1-1.5' over the level of the bed. Added my yard of compost, it brought the leaves down, and the compost filled almost exactly to the top. The second year, I added a half yard to the bed, the leaves had started to compost more.

Thank you for this wisdom! I'll be filling one this weekend.

Hi Scott. I thoroughly enjoyed your video, as I use a very similar method (I'm all about freedom and efficiency) and I'd just like to add a little tip for those half filling with organic material. If you apply a temporary gardening edge in the top of your raised beds, you can over fill in anticipation of the decomposition drop. Sincerely, Adrian

Thank you for this clear and direct information. Just building my cinderblock bed (I watched your video for that as well) and wasn’t sure how to fill it for cheap. Luckily I just collected like 10 bags of leaves and I’m about to do some pruning so it’s awesome I can reuse everything to lower my cost. Thank you

Great information, Scott. You have me wanting to get my compost pile back to work and layering now where I plan to plant next year. Thanks for sharing! Happy Gardening!

Thank you! You are so right about purchasing soil for raised beds. I'll remember the log and branch trick for my next raised bed.

That is a beautiful load of soil you bought! I'm a little jealous and frustrated because I paid a local company last year for a load of topsoil, and instead they brought me a load of orange clay mixed with sand. It gets a crust that's hard as stone, but stays soggy wet on the inside for weeks, even months. I used it anyway in my larger elevated garden, and just put in pockets of good soil where I planted. This year I'm trying to salvage it by mixing in looser organic material, in hopes of gradually changing it. Also this year I built a new bed, and I'm using bagged dirt from Lowe's and Home Depot - still a lot of money but worth it to have a better foundation. For the future, trying to build some of my own compost from raked leaves and kitchen scraps. This is definitely a long-term creative endeavor! :-) Thank you for all that you share with us newbies!

Love the T-Shirt!!! Haven't been to Miramar since I lived in base housing back in 2004. Thanks for the video, great stuff!!

Thank you for sharing your knowledge, much appreciated!

I learned so much from your story. Thank you. I thought I should start the box in spring but you corrected that notion.

Crazy how the prices have doubled since this video

Thanks for giving & sharing informative tips!

So very interesting Knowing what to mix together. Thank you, Carol

Lots of great information regarding compost, soils, mulch, and how to create good soil for planting. I have back yard gardened for several years now. Never thought of using my grass clippings for compost. Thanks Scott.

Awesome video, man! I'm starting a vegetable/medicine raised bed garden this year and your videos are the best and most informative I've found so far. Thanks for all the work you've put into these

Thanks so much for this! I’m so happy I found you before filling my garden beds!

Great food for thought. I’m on the verge of starting a raised bed. Thanks.

Your voice makes me want to sit on the other side of the raised bed and tell you my problems

Thank you , enjoy and always learn something from your videos. Been gardening a long time ,but that why I love it , you never stop learning something new or different!

Thank you. I am getting ready to start raised beds for next spring. This was helpful because I am disabled and don't have a lot of money for this process but need to grow our food because my husband is on a special diet.

Hands down this is the best video I have seen on this subject! Thank you for your time and effort...blessings!

I forgot how beautiful Colorado Skies are🌥⛅️ I live in Oregon now but spent my youth in Woodland Park and around the Springs. Thanks for sharing this info✌🏼

My grandpa had 2 styles of planting, beds and pots/planters. For the beds he put tomatoes in, he just used 1/2-3/4 top soil and the rest was fruit & vegetable soil mix, all from bags. For his planters and pots, he typically put rocks or gravel in the bottom to about 1/4 depth then top soil to raise it another 1/4 to 1/2 then the rest was potting soil mix. I follow the method of top soil to 3/4 depth in my containers and 1/4 planting mix (estimates based upon size of container/planter) and I have had success growing fruits and veggies.

We filled our beds for free. Went down to the public compost heap and filled buckets with leaf compost. Drywall and vermiculite, we removed during remodeling, went in and lots of veggie compost from our home. It turned out great.

Thank you for the videos. I'm extending my patio out in the yard and have bags of grass and the root system.. I love the idea of the bed to make the compost in..thanks again

I love that you're in Colorado, where I live. Different parts of the country have different zones. It's clay 'soil' here and amending it takes some dedication. I'll be watching more of your videos as the seasons progress. Thanks!

Hi Scott. Your advice for my raised beds was great. But the reason I'm writing tonight is because a man came into the store at which I work with questions about raised bed gardens for his wife. She needs it to be at least 30" high. He walked around the garden soil, potting soil, manure and top soil that is sold there. His concern was that it would be very expensive to fill it. I remembered your video on Hugelkultur. We calculated that he'd need 5 levels (based on using 2 x 6 boards) to reach the 30". I told him about Hugelkultur for the lower 4 levels, wood, leaves, cardboard, papers, grass clippings, wood chips. I asked him if he knew of anyone who had a woods where trees had fallen and if he had a chain saw to cut the felled trees to fill the beds. I told him the lower 4 levels of the 30" raised bed would be decaying, adding nutrients. Now, since it's really close to freezing, I suggested he get the beds set up and get them filled with Hugelkultur. At first he thought I was crazy but the more we talked and he started getting a grasp on what I was saying, he said that he'd go home, calculate the lumber and call some friends. He thanked me and said he'd be back to talk more. He agreed that 30" was quite tall but his wife has a really bad back and it needs to be that high. I fully understand. So, thank you for sharing your knowledge.

Probably the single most cost effective video I've seen all year. Great run down.

You're like the Bob ross of gardening 😂. I enjoy the vids!

I learned the hugelkultur method last year when I realized how much it was going to cost to fill the beds. I also start my bed with cardboard...brings the worms...then hugelkultur method and top soil

SMART 🤓 MAN!! This is why I love watching this channel. Who has the money these days to spend on the top name brand soil when you can go natural...I like using leaves, compost stuff that can b free. Go into the woods n you can dig up dark good soil, bags of leaves...You can find some soil n worms in the woods as well. Grass clippings...Kitchen scraps!

Perfect I cut a load of branches off of my bay tree and hadn’t got round to bagging them. Randomly came to me to see if I could use them to fill out my last bed. Definitely worth playing about with

I have installed a 4" PVC pipe in the bed with random spaced 1" drilled holes to the underground part of the pipe. I now add my food scraps, paper, and along with a starter pack of redworms. Cap the top off with some screen, water and feed when needed and the worms will be a continuous help to fertilizing and aerating the garden soil

Great video, and very helpful to those of varying budgets. Yep, I dug the ground below, then did huglekultur stuff, cardboard strips, raw compost not broken down so much and grass clippings, dug up soil, then the very little bit of compost around each plant. I still have to build bed boundary of 8-10 inches, currently thick cardboard wrapped in split black bin liners, staked with strong twigs. I’ll have some big tree branches soon that I might split to make log wall. I used to be very financially comfortable by my own income but thanks to an ex, I lost everything and now having to be more ingenious lol. Certainly looks .... rustic 😂 I heavily regret the amount of garden waste I would put out for the council to collect. Always done composting but I wasted so much. Now only roots and weed seeds going out. The garden is quite lush and needs heavy maintenance so hopefully in future I’ll have lots more compost, soil

Good conversation on flling raised beds.Thanks.

I SUBSCRIBED today 2/27/23!!! I'm gonna try your tips for my raised beds I'm doing on my homestead this year!! Haven't gardened in about 4 year because of health problems but I'm getting back to it this year!!!!

Our 200 yr old willow fell over last summer. It is now composting away in my garden.Lots of work, but well worth it!! did just what you suggested! Even had dirt delivered! TY

This was so helpful and so informative but I also low key wish you were my grandpa. 😂 You seem like such a kind person. 👌🏻

Thank you for your advice on filling the beds with stuff we already have.

Thank you this is very helpful and I feel more confident in how I'm going to start my garden now for next year. I was going to start building the bed and gardening next spring I'm glad I didn't make that mistake.

Thx Scott, it was a really good idea to hear this thing from you too. This method is sustainable and recycles all the wastes around a household, then finally produces again meal for a family. Pulvis es, et in pulverem reverteris. (Ter 3,19)

Gardener Scott. All I can say is thank you

The best advice anyone has given me regarding filling my garden bed!

Thank you Scott, you have provided us with lots of very important details. Thank you

Love the garden beds you made. They really look great👍 Thanks for the ideas. Good info.

You’re an excellent teacher. I’m planning to expand my garden and I learned a lot from you

Thank you for sharing your knowledge. Extremely helpful