How to Find Free (or Cheap) Soil for Raised Beds
Many gardeners like to use raised beds to grow their fruit—they create a lovely border, limit weed growth, and make your back easier—but they can also be quite costly to fill, especially if they’re over a foot tall. However, you don’t need to buy multiple bags of soil to get quality, nutrient-rich seedling material. Follow these tips to get cheap (and sometimes free) infill for your raised beds.
Check local waste disposal
A good place to start if you are looking for free or cheap soil is your local household waste disposal. If your community has a composting program, you can get compost for free or at a big discount. (To use this compost, you need to mix it with coconut flakes or peat , as well as a little vermiculite , to get a good consistency and absorbency for growing plants.)
While you’re there, keep an eye out for a tree branch mulch and garden-grade straw to lay in the bottom of your raised bed under the soil.
Buy soil in bulk
It’s the same quality as the bagged hardware store, but if you can get soil in bulk from your local garden store, you’ll save a lot. Just make sure you only use garden soil to fill raised beds – using unmixed topsoil can rob your plants of nutrients, and using soil containing weed seeds or invasive fungi will require you to do more work in the future.
Try the guild culture method
Hugelkultur is a horticultural technique that originated in Germany. The idea is to fill the bottom parts of your raised bed with organic material that you can get for free: tree branches and branches, mulch and even plastic-free tape and cardboard can be used along the bottom layers of your raised bed to minimize the amount of soil needed. . Start with the largest pieces of material and move on to smaller pieces. Mulch and other small pieces should go up, under the soil. You need about 8 inches of soil to plant your garden, so you can fill the first foot or even two feet of your high raised beds with other organic material, saving you a few cubic yards of soil.
Connect with your local gardening community
Another way to get free raised bed material is through local gardening forums. Sometimes people are willing to give away unused land, mulch from fallen tree branches, or community compost. By connecting with other gardeners in your area, you can find some supplies for free or join local offerings.
Be sure to use materials that won’t introduce fungus or pests into your garden soil, and be sure to check any loose soil for weed seeds. If there is a lot of seeds, you are more likely to pay for soil that does not have seeds, unless, of course, you like to weed.