Stop WASTING MONEY Filling Raised Beds! Fill Them Like This.

In this video, I share how to fill raised garden beds with the best garden soil mix for as cheaply as possible. Gardeners spend way too much money filling raised garden beds with expensive, pre-bagged mixes and unnecessary additives like peat moss, coco coir, perlite, and vermiculite, but that is a mistake. Stop wasting money filling raised beds! Fill them like this.

This method of filling a raised bed can save you hundreds if not thousands of dollars depending on the size of your garden. Don’t pay high prices for soil at big box stores!

How To Make Potting Soil: https://youtu.be/t3kx5PhCJU8?si=DsQO8z1Ye3weLFr4

I use the following products* were featured in this video or used for raised bed gardening:
Raised Bed Kit (4ft X 2ft): https://amzn.to/49bjdWa
Raised Bed Kit (6ft X 3ft): https://amzn.to/3TPAnnP
Raised Bed Kit (8ft X 2ft): https://amzn.to/3voCKoc
Grow Bags (Many Sizes): https://amzn.to/4a0MHa5
Perlite (4 Cu Ft): https://amzn.to/4cy8OXh
Vermiculite (Coarse, 4 Cu Ft): https://amzn.to/4cuU6Af
Vermiculite (Medium, 4 Cu Ft): https://amzn.to/4cwAr3e
Coco Coir (2.5 Cu Ft): https://amzn.to/4asr1Ul
Coco Coir (5 Cu Ft): https://amzn.to/4crhbnB
Jobe’s Organic Vegetable Fertilizer (4lbs): https://amzn.to/45YHmh2
Jobe’s Fruit & Nut Fertilizer (4lbs): https://amzn.to/3sI3OwW
Alaska Fish Fertilizer: https://amzn.to/3XP5EHU
Burpee Bone Meal (3lb): https://amzn.to/48bcBGw
Jobe’s Bone Meal (4lb): https://amzn.to/3uC5klp
True Organic Blood Meal (3lb): https://amzn.to/49IkFk3
Espoma Plant Tone (36lbs): https://amzn.to/3Zgk98f
Jack’s All Purpose 20-20-20 (1.5lb): https://amzn.to/3MQ4I2A
Jack’s Blossom Booster 10-30-20 (1.5lb): https://amzn.to/3KyPTzg
Jack’s / JR Peters All Purpose 20-20-20 (25lb): https://amzn.to/44DUV58
Jack’s Blossom Booster 10-30-20 (25lb): https://amzn.to/45FIuXh
Grow More All Purpose 20-20-20 (25 lb): https://amzn.to/44pSQK2
Full Amazon Store: https://www.amazon.com/shop/themillennialgardener

TABLE OF CONTENTS
0:00 Container Garden VS Raised Bed Garden
2:34 The True Purpose Of Raised Garden Beds
4:29 Why Potting Soil Is Wrong For Raised Beds
5:27 Detailed Soil Cost Analysis
10:48 How To Dramatically Reduce Soil Cost
13:21 How To Fill A Deep Raised Bed
14:46 Adventures With Dale

If you have any questions about how to fill a raised garden bed, want to know about the things I grow in my raised bed vegetable garden and edible landscaping food forest, are looking for more gardening tips and tricks and garden hacks, have questions about vegetable gardening and organic gardening in general, or want to share some DIY and “how to” garden tips and gardening hacks of your own, please ask in the Comments below!

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Miracle-Gro Soluble All Purpose Plant Food https://amzn.to/3qNPkXk
Miracle-Gro Soluble Bloom Booster Plant Food https://amzn.to/2GKYG0j
Miracle-Gro Soluble Tomato Plant Food https://amzn.to/2GDgJ8n
Jack’s Fertilizer, 20-20-20, 25 lb. https://amzn.to/3CW6xCK

Southern Ag Liquid Copper Fungicide https://amzn.to/2HTCKRd
Southern Ag Natural Pyrethrin Concentrate https://amzn.to/2UHSNGE
Monterey Organic Spinosad Concentrate https://amzn.to/3qOU8f5
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Cordless ULV Fogger Machine https://amzn.to/36e96Sl
Weed Barrier with UV Resistance https://amzn.to/3yp3MaJ
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Organza Bags (Tomato-size) https://amzn.to/36fy4Re

Injection Molded Nursery Pots https://amzn.to/3AucVAB
Heavy Duty Plant Grow Bags https://amzn.to/2UqvsgC
6.5 Inch Hand Pruner Pruning Shears https://amzn.to/3jHI1yL
Japanese Pruning Saw with Blade https://amzn.to/3wjpw6o

Double Tomato Hooks with Twine https://amzn.to/3Awptr9
String Trellis Tomato Support Clips https://amzn.to/3wiBjlB
Nylon Mason Line, 500FT https://amzn.to/3wd9cEo
Expandable Vinyl Garden Tape https://amzn.to/3jL7JCI

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ABOUT MY GARDEN
Location: Southeastern NC, Brunswick County (Wilmington area)
34.1°N Latitude
Zone 8B

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#gardening #garden #gardeningtips #raisedbedgarden #raisedbedgardening

What’s growing on gardeners it’s Sunday March 24th and we are getting our garden beds ready for spring here on the Southeastern coast of North Carolina I’m noticing a ton of people adding raised garden beds to their yards this season which is beyond awesome to hear but

There is a problem I’m also noticing a ton of people throwing away their hard-earned money filling their raised beds with unnecessarily expensive soils on today’s video we are going to talk about how you should really fill your raised garden beds stop wasting money and do this instead if you’re new to the

Channel Please Subscribe and hit the Bell to receive new video notifications and check out our Amazon store and spreadshop links in the video description for everything I use in my garden and awesome custom designed apparel and other gear your support is greatly appreciated now if you follow my

Channel you know that I have an extensive container garden I oh hey Dale how you doing buddy you little camera hog take two if you follow my channel you know that I have an extensive container garden I love growing in containers but it is very important that when you build yourself a container

Garden you use a premium potting mix or you make your own premium highquality potting mix like I’ve showed you how to do in the past I will link to a video above and down below in the video description that will teach you how to make premium potting soil for a fraction

Of the cost of the stuff that’s pre-made in a bag now the reason why it is so important to have highquality container mix rich in things like Pete Moss or cocoa core is because your plants can only obtain nutrients from this little area the roots are confined so you need

A mix that both retains moisture and retains the nutrients so they don’t wash out every single time it rains or you over irrigate so for that reason when you’re building a container garden it is very important that you make the highest quality mix possible now a typical recipe for container garden mix that

I’ve shared with you before is usually one part Pete Moss or cocoa core they’re interchangeable one part compost and one part a blend of vermiculite and perite now whether you want to use more vermiculite or more perite is going to depend on what you want out of the mix

Vermiculite is made to retain moisture and nutrients perite is made to increase drainage most mixes usually have a 50/50 blend but if you need a faster draining mix you’d want to use more pear if you want a mix that is slower draining you’d want to use more vermiculite the problem that I’m

Noticing is many gardeners are making these expensive container mixes for their raised bed gardens and this just doesn’t make any sense raised bed gardens are not containers they have open bottoms the purpose of a raised garden bed isn’t to confine your plant’s roots to a container but to compensate

For weaknesses in your native soil or in the layout of your backyard raised garden beds compensate for drainage problems soil problems wash out problems and space problems for example if you have drainage problems because your native soil is a heavy clay that retains water building raised beds is the answer

Because it gets your growing medium above grade that way it drains really quickly and the roots of your plants don’t sit in Mucky soil and rot on the opposite end of the spectrum if you’re like me and you have very sandy soil that’s poor to grow in and contain root

Knot nematodes the raised beds are also the solution because they hold all of that organic matter above ground in place so it doesn’t wash away and you can grow all your plants in that similarly if you live in a climate like mine where I have torrential thunderstorms in the summer and we can

Get 40 to 50 in of rain on average in a single summer season and it’s not unusual to have rainstorms just in the afternoon deliver 4 to 5 in of rain a storm when we get rainfall like that if I planted my stuff in ground it would

All wash away so these raised beds actually lock the soil in place so when we get those heavy torrential rains I don’t lose my plants the water just rushes around the raised beds and nothing is harmed and finally if you have a smaller backyard you may not be

Able to grow in ground because you can’t just till up a big portion of your backyard these raised beds lock your garden into a small confined area that’s really convenient so you don’t have to tear up your backyard to have a guard so like I said your raised garden beds

Shouldn’t be treated like containers they should be treated like real Earth Gardens that just compensate for all of the problems I just mentioned and for that reason we shouldn’t be filling them with container mix we should be filling them with actual soil stuff that approximates what Farmers would grow

Their crops in if you had 50 to 100 acres of beautiful Earth and soil so what actually is soil well if you were a farmer and you were Towing up the ground and planting your crops traditionally you’re growing in the top soil so all that real garden soil is is top soil

That you have amended and worked over years with Organic Matter constantly making it better and better as that organic matter is incorporated and breaks down so over time a real garden soil gets better with age so really all you should be filling your raised beds

In is what Farmers Farm in which is a blend of top soil and compost now because I am a math obsessed number crunching engineer I put a cost comparison together just to show you how much money you’re throwing away if you’re filling your raised garden beds with an expensive container mix instead

Of just making a 50/50 blend of top soil and compost which actually better approximates growing in the Earth so I went out to gather some current pricing I found that the bales of Pete Moss at Lowe’s are currently $23.98 for a 3 cubic foot baale and I

Also was able to gather price prices for large bulk quantities of vermiculite perlite and I also checked out some locally made bagged top soil and compost products to get recent pricing now because pricing changes over time I do not want you to hyperfocus on the pricing but rather the percentage cost

Savings because if you’re watching this video years later obviously things are going to be cheaper than it is now that’s not the point look at the cost savings so what we have right here are my raised beds are all 4T wide by 10 ft long and they are made out of 2x8s which

Have a nominal depth of 7.25 Ines and when calculating the volume of soil fill it’s very important that you calculate it to 100% fill don’t think I’m only going to fill my raised beds 80 to 90% of the way you have to calculate 100% fill because over time the soil is going

To compact so fill them up to the top and you’ll probably have them sink an inch or two on you so on going to follow the classic recipe for making a highquality potting soil which is going to be one part Pete Moss or cocoa core we’re going to use Pete Moss because it

Is considerably cheaper than cocoa core we are going to use one part compost and then one part A 5050 blend of perlite and vermiculite so when you calculate the volume of each of these individual raised beds you will find that each raised bed has a total volume of

24167 cubic feet so if you were to follow this typical highquality potting mix recipe at these current prices it would cost you $19.79 to fill each individual raised bed plus tax that is absolutely insane to spend that much money to fill one raised bed now if I were to go out and

Buy bags of Premium top soil and compost and mix them 50/50 to fill the exact same raised beds the same amount of fill would cost me $732 3 that means it is 2.61 times more expensive to fill each raised bed with a potting mix than simply a 50/50 compost blend and for the

Record this isn’t necessarily one of those you get what you pay for scenarios where spending so much more money on container mix and filling your beds with that is going to yield a better result in fact it may yield a worse result Pete Moss tends to have issues with low PH

Cocoa core tends to have issues with retaining too much salt because it comes from coconut husks when you fill your raised beds with a 50/50 blend of top soil and compost you’re better approximating real soil conditions for your plants to grow in and you’re actually getting a higher percentage of

Organic matter with nutrients so this is actually one of those scenarios where you may actually have better results by spending tremendously less money now there is a third option and this may be the most common commonly selected option amongst most new gardeners and that is

To go to your local Big Box store and buy those big bags from the garden section by the potting soil that are labeled raised bed mix they are a pre-made mix that are supposedly suitable for just dumping in your raised bed so if I go to my local Lowe’s I can

Go and get 1.5 cubic foot bags and if I were to buy enough to fill one of my raised beds perfectly it would cost me $0000 $4 4468 this is significantly cheaper than making the homemade premium potting mix but it is still 1.98 times let’s just call an even two times more expensive

Than using the 50/50 top soil and compost option and while this is the most convenient thing to do it may be the worst of the three options and I’ll tell you why what raised bed mixes is basically just really cheap potting soil they dramatically reduce the amount of

Pete Moss in there which is the thing that costs the most amount of money and then they bulk it with shredded wood or bark in order to increase the drainage and bulk it up for pennies on the dollar so you’re just getting the cheapest made

Potting mix known to man and as a result it basically does nothing well the moisture retaining and nutrient retaining properties that premium potting mix has because of all that Pete Moss or cocoa core you lose those benefits while also losing the the benefits of all of that compost mixed

Into a 50/50 top soil blend so you’re basically getting a really lowquality potting mix that is low in nutrients so in my opinion it isn’t worth the few dollars that you’re going to save versus a premium potting mix and it certainly is not nearly as good as that 50/50 top

Soil blend and if you still think that cost of $73 per raised bed is high well I have a better solution for you and this is the big advantage of the 50/50 top soil and compost blender method see when you buy the stuff for potting mix your Pete Moss or cocoa core vermiculite

Perlite I’ve never found a way to get that stuff delivered in bulk you have to buy prepackaged stuff which costs an arm and a leg at the highest most premium prices possible however if you’re only filling your raised beds with top soil and compost you can get that stuff

Delivered to your house now I went to the store and I bought bag mix just for a fair comparison but I could easily call a local landscape company and I can get triaxle dump truck loads delivered to my door of top soil and compost and I

Can mix it myself at a fraction of the cost of the stuff in bags now that’s actually what I did when I filled my raised beds I went out and I just got pure compost I had it dumped in my driveway and I just hauled it with

Wheelbarrows and at the time I didn’t mind spending the extra money but I could have cut that cost dramatically by blending it 50/50 with top soil at today’s prices I probably would do that that personally but the point I’m trying to make is by doing a home delivery

Instead you can further cut that cost maybe even in half or more so if $73 sounds like a lot to you well if you’re filling numerous raised beds it is worth your time to call up a landscaping company and have the stuff delivered to you in bulk and now you’re talking about

Saving four five six times the cost of somehow filling your raised beds with a expensive premium potting mix so if you’re only filling one or two raised beds it may not be a big deal and it may be more convenient to just go to a store and buying pre-bagged premium top soil

And some type of compost and just mixing it together yourself however if you’re filling more than that it really is worth your time and money to have the stuff delivered to your house in fact if you call around to local landscape supply companies a lot of them already

Have a pre-made raised bed mix two different suppliers near me already have a 50/50 blend of screened top soil and compost that they deliver to you and they’ll just dump in your driveway for a couple hundred bucks and then you wheel bow it over yourself you will save a ton

Of money and then you won’t have to go through the manual labor of blending the two items together so that is a massive win please look around call around you can save hundreds maybe thousands of dollars filling your raised beds if you have a large enough Garden one thing I

Did not covered this video is how to save money if you buy a really deep raised bed that’s 2 to 3 ft deep and you you don’t want to fill 100% of that raised bed with a soil mix because it’ll cost way too much money uh the scope of

This video is really only to discuss that top soil and compost layer that we grow in however if you do have really deep raised beds I would suggest you look at videos about the hugle culture method which usually involves filling the bottom half of your raised bed with

Things like wooden logs or branches or things like that to add volume that hold on to the moisture just in case your roots eventually tap down and get long enough that they can tap into that moisture layer it’s a great way to hold on to moisture so you have to water less

In the Heat of the summer and that right there is how you can save a ton of money filling your raised garden beds sometimes the cheaper solution is actually the better solution so everybody I sure hope you found this video helpful if you did please make sure to hit that like button subscribe

To the channel and please ring that notification Bell so you’re notified when I release more videos like these if you’re curious about any of the products that I use in real life in my garden they are all linked Down Below in the Amazon storefront Link in the video description so expand the video

Description click on my Amazon storefront link you’ll see everything I use in real life and while you’re down there check out my spread shop for custom merch if you want to support the channel thank you all so much for watching and I hope to see all of you again on the next

Video Dale what are you doing Daddy’s trying to get some work done and you’re standing on top of him I’m trying to edit a video is there who hey hey you’re dripping all over my pants what is this oh I see is there something there that you want do you maybe want a

Treat Dale I already gave you two that’s my backup treat okay go on your bed Dale I’ll give you a treat if you go on your bed on your bed all right Mr Handsome here you go gentle good boy good boy now let me finish working on my video