I'm getting a couple raised flowerbeds delivered tomorrow. What would the best type of soil be to fill them with?

Depends on what flowers you're planting, how deep and so on. My basic mix is topsoil with about 1 part in 3 of peat-moss, and 1 in 4 of compost and sometimes a little sheep manure. I make that for my container vegetables, and it seems to work okay for houseplants, too.

Container soil by the bag from a big box store. Or, topsoil by the yard from a garden supply, amend with compost.

Thank you both. If I wanted to add yard waste to The raised box. How long would I need to wait to plant in it?

Timdee123 said:Thank you both. If I wanted to add yard waste to The raised box. How long would I need to wait to plant in it?

Then it becomes a compost pile, not a garden. About a year.

Ok thank you. I had read that you could put a base of sticks , stone , leaves and grass clippings done then cover it with soil.

Depends on the depth of your raised beds, chuckl. Some folks don't have but a foot above the yard, and yard waste means grass clippings. I used dead branches in the bottom of my beds. Kind of following the HugelKulture methods. Be careful which wood, since some woods are allelopathic, some woods like black locusts will grow from a dead branch I firmly believe and really, if you add leaves, they should be shredded. Kitchen vegetable scraps you bury down there should be a year, but if more than a foot down should be ok, depending what you plant over them.




I have a mix of dirts, (bags of container or raised bed soils, shredded wood mulches, cow manures and humus, leaf composts, try not to use a moisture control product as it can stay too wet)-even a few potting soils thrown on top. Also eggshells nuked 3 minutes and crumbled every year...I also have fire ants and use excess water to keep them out of the beds, so consider drainage when you do this. Be careful with straw as it may have weed herbicides in it that will also kill your plants, or warp them so horribly you will think you have failed.

When I filled my raised tomato bed I used the very best top soil I could find mixed 50/50 with my own compost. I add fresh compost every year. I also use hay (certified organic) as mulch, and turn that under in the fall.

Thank you all. This website is very informative and all the people are so helpful

Would anyone recommend putting landscaping fabric down first or no?

NOOOOOOO!!!!!

Plant roots don't stay in raised gardens, they follow the water into the soil below. Landscape fabric impedes that downward growth. And if it doesn't, why use it? You can't keep the soils in your raised bed and the native soil from co-mingling so don't even try.

Agreed with Daisyl, however, I have moles and use metal fabric to block them. I went to sleep knowing I hadn't answered a question you weren't aware of asking. Stones. We no longer recommend adding stones, pebbles, etc to the bottom of beds/planters. Even in a yard under grass a stone can cause your grass to die over that area. Every plant has a different depth of soil it needs and can be researched to find that depth-as soon as you know the flowers you want, or even herbs and vegetables. If you are trying to kill the grass under the new beds use cardboard-it will disintegrate thru the year, and also restrict the grass. With my year long humidity, using grass clippings or straw would smother everything and cause fungus, and rot, and other bad stuff to develop.

Awesome . Thank you for the input. I really appreciate everybody's help . I'll post pictures when all done.

My beds are fairly shallow, with no bottom and I put some earth on them every spring with from the containers in the green house, plus extra compost. The only one I used to toss fresh vegetable waste in is the bed I would plant cucumber in that year. The next rotation, peas would go there and the squash would go in the next bed. Not this year - I'm putting the cucumbers and squashes indoors and more tomatoes outdoors. So, extra finished compost, no raw veg.

Thank you. I think I'm leaning more towards putting flowers in my raised bed. I saw a 2 pound bag of earth science perennials do you think those would go well in a raised bed?

How much rain do you get? It has water retaining crystals in it. The flowers appear to be a native mix. You will still need to have dirt under them as this is a preseeded additive to an already established bed.

Rains off and on in Massachusetts. I think I'll just go with a mix of annuals that have already bloomed.

Do you know how they say you should never go food shopping when you're hungry. You should probably never go shopping for plants in the middle of a pandemic it's lasted over a year. I think I over planted but I have pansies in my railing boxes which I'm gonna pull out shortly after memorial day and I'll transplant some of these into those. The only problem I have is the Pansies are doing way better than I thought they would. Normally they're dead by memorial day.

I wouldn't dig any out. You are going to love the look when all those plants bloom.

Some years the pansies last half the summer and in other years, they are gone at the end of spring.