Mixing the Topsoil

March 24th, 2015

Over the weekend, Ryan and I finished filling our garden beds. Last weekend, we tilled and built our beds.

I've been spring cleaning my flower beds and decided to keep the old mulch and leaves to mix into the topsoil we added to our beds. This wasn't mulch that was one to two years old, this was old enough to have decomposed a bit and broke down. I made sure not to incorporate the still-colored mulch from last year.

Ryan went to Skinner's and bought a yard of topsoil for $57. We put about half in each bed. Last year, when cleaning up leaves around the house, we saved them in trash barrels. I threw those down before adding the topsoil, then mixed in the old, decomposing mulch and more leaves into the topsoil with a hoe. We also added a bag to each bed of raised bed garden mix, (left).

I mixed in old mulch, topsoil and raised bed mix.

At first, we didn't have a hoe and we were using shovels to mix the dirt, old mulch and raised bed mix. Believe me when I say it's worth the $20 for a hoe. It makes everything much easier to handle. I also bought a metal rake, which helped even everything out when I was done. It worked well to mix together the materials, but the hoe worked better, fo' sho'.

I also bought a hand-crank compost container. Ryan and I discussed what kind to get, since we have animals and a small back yard, we opted for this type. We didn't want our dog, or other neighborhood animals for that matter, to get into our compost pile. This also makes it so we don't have to have to go out and mix it around ourselves. It's really easy, you just crank it. I got lucky buying mine because the box was rotting and the legs of the compost-holder were slightly rusted. Lowe's gave me a 50 percent discount, so I only paid $50 for mine. You can find them online for $80 plus shipping, and up.

Now, all I gotta do is water the garden for a couple weeks and see if any weeds volunteer themselves before I actually plant. In that time, Ryan and I will talk about what to plant. That will be my next post.