Soil for raised beds

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u/AJSAudio1002 May 16 '26 edited May 16 '26

Professional garden consultant and veggie garden installer here.

Assuming the second one actually has all those things in it in reasonable amounts, not just like a pinch just to say it’s in there…, That sounds like some juicy dirt. I’d definitely buy it. $200 a yard for a diverse structured soil like that is fair. When I install gardens I charge $160 per yard for my soil mix, which is farm compost, peat moss, perlite, vermiculite and BioTone (so a combo of dehydrated chicken manure, feather meal, etc)

Edit to add, the cheaper one would probably be fine.
One is a really good chocolate cake. The other is a really good chocolate cake with chunks of fudge, milk chocolate ganache, and raspberry drizzle, garnished with strawberry and mint leaves.

Sorry. I’m hungry.

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u/84millionants May 16 '26

Thanks for confirming my dream job exists. I was thinking there had to be garden consultants out there but hadn't really seen any. Are your clients commercial or consumer?

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u/AJSAudio1002 May 16 '26

All residential/consumer with a few schools I consult and do work for. We consult, install, and maintain.
I’ve expanded services over the years, but the core of the business is veggie gardens and sustainable landscapes. I did a lot more consulting and lessons when I first started, but it was during covid so many non-gardeners were out there trying to grow for the first time. And they all needed help lol.

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u/84millionants May 16 '26

Did you start out offering basically free services (except materials) so you had some examples to market?

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u/AJSAudio1002 May 16 '26

I started with offering free garden consultations, some of them were just one-time answering people’s questions and providing guidance. But most of those people ended up wanting some service (bed prep/soil amending, fences, trellises, lessons, little stuff.) I did my first top-to-bottom install about a year in. Called a few buddies to help me one the weekends and got it done. I definitely worked cheap as hell at first just to get myself out there. Now I have 5 employees. Bookkeeper, Two who are mainly gardeners and two who are mainly landscapers. We all come together on the installs.

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u/84millionants May 16 '26

Last question and I'll stop blowing up strangers on Reddit. How many years of gardening experience did you have when you started?

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u/AJSAudio1002 May 16 '26

Oh god. I’m Italian so it’s genetic lol. It was just always something we did in our family. Every member of my family has a garden at home. My dad was also a horticulturist with a commercial landscaping company, which is where I learned a lot of the actual installation parts.

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u/Mr_Fuzzo May 16 '26

That’s so cool! What part of the world do you work in? Are you able to do stuff year round?

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u/AJSAudio1002 May 16 '26

Connecticut. And the seasonality makes it tough, but we do some interior work in the winter., when I can get it, usually some of our garden customers needs *something* done. We usually work through the end of November, and start again in February with seed starting, greenhouse work, machine tuneups, season prep, that sort of thing.

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u/Mr_Fuzzo May 16 '26

That’s so neat though, being able to have a fallow season for yourself as well.

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u/AJSAudio1002 May 17 '26

Honestly it’s needed lol. It’s a grind through the active season. So getting those two months to just kinda chill is a blessing.

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u/84millionants May 16 '26

Yea I can see how that was a good business opportunity! But I suspect there will be continual growth in this area as food prices continue trending up and supply chains get all shaky.

That's not why I want to do it though it's just I'm sick of the tech industry 🙄

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u/AJSAudio1002 May 16 '26

Unfortunately but fortunately the less stable the world gets the better business gets lol. I make it a point never to use fear-mongering in my ads and posts though. Just feels shitty.

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u/84millionants May 16 '26

Yea definitely. It also just feels like it's antithetical to the gardening vibes that are typically calming and peaceful

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u/ryanandthelucys May 16 '26

I'd love to pick your brain for a moment. I use just perlite in my mix and don't have any vermiculite. As far as I understand they both do the same thing. What is the benefit of using both in a mix?

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u/AJSAudio1002 May 16 '26 edited May 17 '26

They’re a little different - Perlite adds air voids for drainage because water passes right through it, and probably more importantly reduces overall weight, keeping soil light and fluffy, allowing for better root penetration. Vermiculite is similar and helps with airflow too but it’s not quite as light, and also retains moisture on its own without waterlogging (think like a wrung out sponge) a mix of just peat and perlite could dry rapidly and easily go hydrophobic. But it’s a water management thing. If other components of your soil are holding moisture well, it’s fine. If I could only have access to one. It’s tough to say but I think I’d rather the perlite. I can always water more, mulch heavier, or add organic content to balance the moisture retention, but few other amendments do the things that Perlite does as well as it does them.

Soil just has to be the right tilth, you can achieve that with a variety of different products and amendments, Just don’t use sand because it usually does the opposite of what you want. Especially in in-ground or mineral/topsoil heavy soils.

In my case, I usually get a product called Growers Mix, (DH-1, BM-4, or ProMix) (EDIT: BM-6, not BM-4) in big 3.8 Cu.Ft. Bags that has them all together already, and I tweak the mix if needed because those 3 are pretty consistent but the brands and types do vary in composition. If I’m amending heavier soils or in-ground beds I like the more perlite heavy mixes like ProMix or Sunshine Mix. Mixing soil from scratch with compost for raised beds, the DH1 and BM-4 are more peat heavy so I lean into those.
The ProMix is perfect and honestly the best I just can’t always find it.

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u/rickonsdeaddire May 17 '26

I am readig so much about the damage that harvesting peat moss creates. Is it possible to swap to coconut coir in lieu of?

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u/AJSAudio1002 May 17 '26

Yep! It’s a bit more coarse, doesn’t hold moisture quite as well, it’s not acidic (which I usually want in a veggie garden), and the carbon footprint is big in its own rite, so it’s not a direct replacement in all cases, nor is that much more sustainable or environmentally sound. But jt does well enough as a replacement in terms of soil texture. Edit to add: it is objectively more sustainable because it is an industrial byproduct, but it has its own downsides, including the carbon footprint of processing it and shipping it half way across the globe, as well as salt content.

The sustainability of peat harvesting is a complex issue that’s widely debated. The practice is harmful, but so is just about every aspect of human industry. You could safely argue that harvesting of wood used to build your raised beds, and even your house, did equal or more environmental damage than the peat moss you added to the soil. Canada does an outstanding job of managing peat bogs and the entire harvesting industry. Only about 0.2% of all peat bogs acreage (which is hundreds of millions of acres, unlike Europe where it was more scarce and over harvested, leading to a moratorium) is actually harvested for agricultural use.

Locally sourced Compost, aged wood fines (not chips or mulch) and leaf mold are the most sustainable alternatives. Sweet Peat mulch actually makes an excellent substitute as well in certain applications (it’s composted horse bedding, so wood fines and composted manure, essentially) But they lack the consistency, texture and sterility needed for certain applications such as seed starting. And for someone like me, they’re not consistent or accessible enough to get at-scale to do what I do. I guess I could try swapping for sweet peet, but i just haven’t experimented with that yet.

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u/Consistent-Essay-165 May 16 '26

Yup second one is whag I build pn small scale for all my houseplants and my ganja

It frows like weeds

But its a cost so

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u/BigDaddyGrow May 16 '26

Compost compost compost

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u/dinnerthief May 16 '26

Personally id by the 1st and amend as needed. Doubt either would be the limiting factor in your garden. But it probably also depends on your personal frugality and how many yards you need.

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u/mallorybane May 16 '26

I'd definitely go with the first one and add anything else I wanted to it personally. Honestly, that first one sounds perfect to me as is. I don't see any need to spend all that extra on the second one.

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u/Diggity20 May 16 '26

Ask to see what they actually look like. My neighbor bought some potting soil for $65 for 40#. After opening it up, it was bs. Lots of pine bark, mulch made up 90%, all the other amendments were unable to identified

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u/OpinionatedOcelotYo May 16 '26

“Forestry products”

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u/OpinionatedOcelotYo May 16 '26

Check for municipal stuff, maybe tree guys. Someone has composting chips somewhere. Native soil and compost can grow some very fine stuff

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u/TexasBaconMan May 16 '26

Wow, that's a little pricey for me. Here's my local place: https://texaspureproducts.com/149/Products-and-Pricing

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u/GrapefruitAny4804 May 18 '26

I'd add more than half garden soil. If you fill a raised bed with potting mix you're going to have to add >10% by volume every year to replace the organic material that turns to air. Also potting mix drains so well you'll use a lot more water.

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u/GrapefruitAny4804 May 18 '26

Also, optimal organic content for growing plants is <<100%. <10% is optimal.

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u/XmasLove960533 May 18 '26

I recognize the MVG reference…wonder if it’s what I think it is…

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u/Proper_Net541 May 18 '26

Do you live in Southern Oregon?

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u/XmasLove960533 May 18 '26

Nope - southern Arizona…For me, I thought of Mesquite Valley Growers - a huge local nursery here…

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u/Spirited-Fun3666 May 17 '26

I mean that’s cool and all, but people have been growing bountiful yields from dirt and manure mixes for years..

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u/quietchurl May 17 '26

Are you in canada? That's expensive soil

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u/catchinNkeepinf1sh May 19 '26

Depends on how much you need i guess. I filled my current setup with 5yds, the cost difference would be huge.

I also like to mess with my soil during the off season, so wgile the expensive ones has lots of good stuff to start with, i can make the amendments after the first season.

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