Building some raised beds and trying to come up with some ideas to keep costs down as our top soil sucks(removed during construction) so having to buy materials. Doing 4x8 beds 8 inches tall. 6 beds in total so I think im looking at 144 cubic feet of material.

Google lasagna garden beds. Basically layering compostable materials.

Your going to have to find someplace that sells compost or a "super soil" blend in bulk and haul it in or possibly have it delivered. Buying in bags is rediculous.

When I made my raised beds I double-dug them to create them. I dug down two feet in one foot strips. Pit the soil from one strip into the next. The resulting "fluffed up" soil gave me a raised bed that lasted for years before it had to be double-dug again. I am lucky in that I live in an area with deep topsoil, up to a foot or more deep at places. I also make my own compost, lots of it, and add that to the beds every year to help keep them elevated above the surrounding grade. I don't use any type of frame or border. The mounded up beds actually provide a bit more square footage than a flat, framed raised bed would.

I think the biggest bang for your buck might be to buy a truck load of topsoil and amend it yourself.

There's a place around me that sucks up all the leaves in the towns and turns them in to a humus. I would try to mix that in with some quality top soil. It is amazing stuff. You can check with local construction places, they might have some good soil for cheap, especially if you haul it.

I am making raised beds too and plan on using manure. There should be free manure in your area. If you want to make the trip up, I will give you literal tons of manure.

Keith

Doesn't straight manure have to be composted or at least aged before planting in it Keith?

Yes or you'll fry your plants.

I used lots of sawdust or shavings in mine and it worked well.

Dig your existing soil about a foot deep with a spade. This will provide the fluff that you can add ingredients to make better soil. You won't have to haul in all your "dirt" that way. Once you get that done rototill to make a good even mix. Then I just shovel a path between beds and take that soil and add it right and left to your beds. This too increases the soil depth in each of the adjacent beds. 4' wide beds are a little hard to reach into the middle. I make mine about 3'. Don't add any "woody" mulch. Decomposing wood uses nitrogen. Have fun and reap the rewards!!

Mostly yes. I have used fresh rabbit manure to grow tomatoes in with a little dirt on top.

I have been piling up manure here since 2012. A lot of it is very well broken down.

Keith

Have the existing soil tested and amend accordingly. You want to get the pH right and if needed add sand/gypsum/sulfur/lime.

I always have three piles going. One fresh, one getting there and one finished. I turn them with the loader bucket. Pretty much anything organic gets added; grass clippings (from my yard and a neighbors yard only, we don't use chemicals), rabbit and chicken manure from our animals, horse manure from neighboring farms, wood chips, sawdust, leaves, food leftovers and coffee grounds, etc. The piles compost for two years and are pretty much finished by then. The finished pile gets added to the garden soil this time of year and I start a new pile.

Others might disagree, but I’ve been using straight mushroom compost for many years with great success. It was used to grow mushrooms, and is sold to landscape supply companies afterwards. It is sterilized to kill weed seed, and makes a great, loose, median to grow onions, carrots, beets, things that like a looser soil. I also grow a lot of tomatoes, peppers, and pole beans in my raised beds. I get it locally.....a load ( maxed out by weight and volume) in my Chevy 2500 costs me $60.

this ^^^ it depends on what type of manure. Rabbit can be applied with no composting. Chicken or Turkey will have so much nitrogen it will burn plant up if not aged. Horses and cow I like to compost to kill all the seeds they pass and will grow in your garden if you don't.

I have several compost piles , get leaf mulch from a semi local hwy department and use it as a mulch several inches deep around plants. It holds moisture and makes weeding very quick and easy. It also breaks down into incredible topsoil. In about 3 years it will look like black potting soil.

I don't have any raised beds but am thinking about making a boarder around the kitchen garden to serve as a fence and for planting things I am getting tired of bending over to harvest, and weed. Like Bush bean's and carrots. But our kitchen garden is probably 1/4 acre and that is a lot of work and material + fill. I will make mine 2-3 feet deep if I do it because the driving reason is to save my back. Being they will be so deep I will probably put a layer of logs in the bottom to fill space. They will rot down and hold moisture.

To many irons in the fire though. Getting my high tunnel in this spring along with 1900' of water line in will be taking priority.

I did that when I dug a fertility ditch on one end of the garden last winter/spring. It just doesnt quite have enough organic matter in it to stay fluffy, a good rain flattens it back out quickly. Just way too much clay in our soil. So these beds will be in "virgin" soil.

4' isnt an issue for reach, at least not for me.

They stripped the top soil and sold it to a local nursery, so they can sell it back to you later.

Gypsum will help clay.

Find someone with horses .... My buddy scrapes his pasture off once a year with a skid steer ..... He turns the pile every so often and has the best dirt around .... Every few years I get a truck load of jet black dirt ....

you'r gonna need 5 yards of dirt 3b
8"x4'x48'= 4.75 yards

my wife wants some raised beds here real bad, but i can't figure where or even how to get the dirt to fill em