On 4/9/2013 11:15 AM, MICHELLE H. wrote:
Anyone know of any companies that sell GOOD and cheap bagged
topsoil/fill?? Almost everyone near me has the "Scotts Premium Topsoil"
for around $2 bucks a bag, but the stuff is crap!! I bought some last
year, and when I opened the bag, it wasn't even dirt/soil, or was more
like all mulch and peat!!! TONS of sticks and mulch in there, even
though the bag says "contains no sticks", the stuff is junk!!


Home Depot sells some generic topsoil for about $1.50 a bag, but that
stuff sucks as well. The dirt is always wet, and smelly, and loaded with
debris like ieces of plastic, rocks, etc, etc. Same with the "Ace
Hardware" topsoil which is about $3 bucks a bag, the stuff is wet,
smelly, and loaded with debris.


The "Garden Centers" near me have good brands like organic "Fosters",
"Fafard", "Moo Moo Dirt" and "Lobster Compost", the problem is they are
like $5 - $8 bucks per bag!!


In my yard, the former owners, many years ago had a very long flower bed
on the side of the house. When we moved in, there were no flowers there.
It is all grass now. The problem is, there is a big long deep rut there
now where the flower bed was. The ditch/rut is about 30 feet LONG, 2-3
feet WIDE, and about 1-2 feet DEEP.


We want to fill this in, because when it rains the rut fills with water.
When you mow the lawn there, the mower scalps the grass on the sides of
the rut/ditch. I know the best way to fill this in, would be to just
call a landscaping company and have a truck full of topsoil/loam dumped.


The problem is, I have a small driveway with 3 cars parked in it, and a
small front yard with a busy public sidewalk with people and kids
walking by all day because of an elementary school down the street. I
don't think the city would be happy with a big pile of dirt dumped on
the public City sidewalk. So unfortunately, looks like the only way to
ever fix this myself ( without paying landscapers to use a wheelbarrow
to move the soil from their truck parked in the street to the ditch/rut,
is to buy bagged topsoil.


Put one of the cars someplace else and have them dump a load there.



I don't want to use the crappy $2 dollar a bag "Scotts" which is like
85% mulch and peat moss, but also don't want to spend like $7 bucks a
bag for the organic stuff at the Garden Center. Should I just use the
cheap $1.50 stuff at Home Depot to fill the ditch/rut, and then just
spread a few bags of the good organic stuff on the top??


Because this thing being 30 feet long, 2-3 feet wide, and 1-2 feet deep,
I probably need like 50 bags of topsoil!?

You would need considerably more than that. Bags are intended for
filling the flower box not for the volume you would need. For that many
bags they would need to deliver multiple pallet loads and you would need
to put them someplace. And pay probably 15x the cost of just getting a
load dumped.