How to Fill Raised Garden Beds and Save 90% 

Very useful content, thank you. I appreciate your perspective on using native garden soil, wood chips, and old potting soil. I tend to re-use old potting soil - if I’m lazy I just remove a good chunk of the old plant roots, then add chicken manure and vermicompost on top (or in the new planting hole), along with a little bit of organic fertilizer. If I’m not lazy, I’ll mix everything up separately before filling up the planting container(s). Sometimes if I have a Rubbermaid tote bin available, I’ll dump in old potting soil, some chopped up plant remnants or kitchen scraps, and a good handful of worms from the worm bin. Wait 3 months or so and it’s good to go again with the addition of a little organic fertilizer.

Love how you always have scholarly references, rather than just tossing 'facts' out w/o support. Also WOO, just noticed you've gone up like 14k+ subscribers since I first noticed. Congrats!

Your perspective is REALLY needed in the age of "spending more=better"❤

This is just what I needed man! I'm going to need ~96 cubic feet of soil and the good stuff is prohibitively expensive. Putting raised beds together in the next month or so with plans to fully plant next spring. I love the idea of "seeding" them with worms, and since I'm not in a rush I think I'm going to try a cover crop too. Keep it up buddy! Cheers!

Awesome video. I don't even like seeing perlite in the outdoor garden, it makes me aware I'm spending money and dependent on supply lines. I moved to zone 8 and have been working to naturally amend the sandy, rocky soil which seems like a river bed. Go wood chips, boo unsustainably sourced peat moss!

I've been doing something similar for years, but always felt guilty that maybe I was doing the wrong thing but it was cheap and I haven't had too much drop off from production. Thanks for the advice.

I laugh when people don't use their potting soil. I put it in my garden and it helps to make the soil fluffy

Thank you so much for this helpful information! Question: do you need to wait a year to use these raised bed recipes before planting?

can you add the amazon link for the bed? Thanks!

This is all great advice. I've tried to garden as cheaply as possible for most of my gardening experience, and your methods are great. You could even get away with almost all native soil in the raised bed (as long as it's not like pure clay) and only amend the planting holes like most people would do while planting a flower next to their house. I've done this before (the soil has high silt content) and although it's not ideal you will notice an improvement every year. It's a slower process, but hardly costs anything. I have also seen tomatoes grown in a raised bed made from a half of a hollow, old growth poplar log that at one point in time was about 5 or 6 feet in diameter. The media was 100% wood chips that were chipped literally earlier that week, mostly hardwood (even a small amount of black walnut) but also contained a small portion of eastern white pine. They showed signs of nitrogen deficiency, but they produced tomatoes that were still good. The main thing is to give them the nutrients they need, like you said, after all hydroponic gardening is a thing. As far as reusing potting soil, I think it's actually superior to fresh, and anyone interested in "terra preta" should experiment with it. I have left potting soil in their pots for years after the original plant died, and let nature take it's course and fill the pot with weeds, worms, ants, or whatever. The soil becomes this beautiful black crumbly material that is similar to the description of "terra preta." My favorite thing to do as far as preparing potting soil is concerned, is take some of those pots, weed them thoroughly, including all roots, and mix them into fresh potting soil to inoculate it with whatever is in the earlier soil, rather than adding store bought mycorrhizae.

Whatever you do, don’t fill the bottom half of your bed with fresh grass clippings (too much nitrogen). Don’t ask how I know.

Can I use the pine wood chips from my chicken coop? Already mixed! 😂

Says they will add timestamps…does not add timestamps.

Worms rule 👍🏼🪱😃

I treated my seedlings with a micorrhizal rich drench. For the soil I used StaGreen Garden soil from Lowes, I added perlite and vermiculite and organic fertilizer to the mix. Once the seedlings were planted and starting to grow, I mulched with mus h room compost.

So glad I found your channel!!! So helpful!!!

I love watching your videos, it’s like going to gardening school. I’ve been watching your cucumber videos. Would you please give your top 3 cucumber types. I like in zone 5 but we always get hot summers

With woodchips, I would not mix fresh woodchips with soil. Maybe it makes sense to use them as a bottom layer which is almost like hugelkulture or core gardening, or mainly as a top layer mulch. I only mix woodchips in with soil if its aged and almost rotting. But I have seen someone who used horse manure mixed with woodchips, neither are composted yet, and still got great results, the manure helps in this case. So my experience is if you are going to mix in fresh woodchip and want to plant right away you need to fertilize additionally the first year to compensate. Like you said, in the video, if you can wait, growing cover crop and letting the worms help break down the organic matters, then the soil will be much better next year. I have terrible experience with cheap garden soil, it took me a long time to turn them good with adding compost and lots of fertilizing. I actually prefer topsoil and amend it with compost than to buy cheap garden soil especially because they have biosolids in them, which is hidden behind the ingredient 'compost' in the labeling. A word on coconut coir, it severely tied up nutrients if mixed in soil and need a lot of fertilizing. You could mix the coir with manure or compost and let it sit for a few months to age, but overall I avoid the product completely, it probably have more use in hydroponic growing. There are some brands that sell aged coir like FoxFarms but it's expensive and not worth spending the money. Here in the midwest there are aged fine size pine bark, which is different from fresh large nuggets. I used it to mulch my garden path for the last few year and now the soil below is amazing. It is also a good alternative to perlite or as an additional ingredient in making your own potting mix.

Fantastic video