Topsoil Advice

 


Hi,

I am currently re-doing my garden, we are lifting up 3inchs of concrete
which
has been in the garden for over 20years ... the soil in the
boarders is poor
(clay) so we are going to get some top soil so we can
grow fruit and veg and
have a nice lawn which (hopefully) wont get water
logged. I have never bought
topsoil before and was hoping for some
advice, we don't have a lot of money and
after a few google searches its
looking its looking to cost around £90 per ton,
is this reasonable? ...
i think we will need about 8/9 tons all together. Does
anyone know of
any good places around the Bristol / Bath areas for topsoil?

Any help or advice would be great.

Regards,

Sammy




--
Sammy25

 

  wibbled on Sunday 25 April 2010 17:01


90/ton sounds fairly unreasonable.

In East Sussex, it can be had in ton crane bags (less than a ton actual
weight) for about 40+VAT.

I do believe it is cheaper by the truckload. Small flatbed tipper will hold
3-4 tons - having seen such a tipper dump 3 or so tons at our local school
where I was helping to make some veggie patches.

If it's costing more than 30/ton by the truck, I'd ring around some more.

Also - be sure what you are getting. There's "screened" which should be free
of large rocks and sods, and there's unscreened which may be cheaper, but
has probably been scraped straight off the top of a soon-to-be building
site.


--
Tim Watts

Managers, politicians and environmentalists: Nature's carbon buffer.

 


Sammy25;884925 Wrote:

topsoil?

No local knowledge but my advice is, once you order it, be there when
the load
is delivered and get up on the lorry and look at it before you
let them tip it.
Look for rubble, couch grass roots and other perennial
weed roots, lumps of clay
etc which may or may not be hidden beneath the
surface so use a fork or spade to
check it.  Once it's tipped, it's
tipped.  Whatever you say, they're not going
to shovel it back on and
take it away...

No-one has a consistent supply of topsoil - it's whatever has just been
removed
prior to new building work - so it's always variable.  Worth
asking for info on
the site it's just been removed from (farmland,
demolition area etc) too.




--

Cheshire gdner

 


Cheshire gdner;885277 Wrote:

order it, be there when

at it before you

other perennial

beneath the

take it away...

removed prior to new building work - so it's always variable.  Worth

> asking

for info on the site it's just been removed from (farmland,

> demolition area

etc) too.
£90 is what Jewsons quote for topsoil, and they claim it is top stuff -
processed, conditioned, no rubble.  I bought a couple of tonnes from
them a
couple of years ago, when it was a good notch cheaper, I think
£75, and it was
indeed beautiful stuff.  So maybe it is question of you
get what you pay for.




--
echinosum

 



Are you checking with builders' merchants?
I have seen the 'one ton' bags at Jewson.