Greengirls » Blog Archive » Manure is great, but what’s the dirt on soil?

Manure is great, but what’s the dirt on soil?

Posted on May 6th, 2008 – 6:54 PM
By Jaime Chismar

At the Spring into Green event, Connie and I met many gardeners, including Lynette, a spunky green thumb who was looking for some free fill for her new veggie beds. We were worried. Free dirt isn’t always food safe, so we planned to do a little research on Lynette’s behalf. Well, it looks like she beat us to the punch and got herself a good deal to boot!

From Lynette:

I met Connie and Jaime at the Spring into Green Event… I had asked you both where I should buy 6 yards of dirt for my raised beds where I plan to grow food. Connie, you had cautioned me about going to an expensive landscape store because the dirt was going to be overpriced. I just wanted to let you know what I found.

So I called a couple of garden centers: Bachmans, Wagners, Sunnydale Garden Center, Home Depot, Mendards and most of them just had bags of dirt and did not deliver.

I Googled “Buying Garden Soil in Minnesota” and stumbled on a forum that mentioned two names – Herman Landscape Supply (952.492.2783) and Leitner’s (651.291.2655). I ended up going with Herman Landscape supply at just $11.75/yard with a delivery fee of $80 ($10 extra if it is delivered on a weekend) With delivery and tax, my dirt cost me $160.28. In comparison, if I had bought bags of dirt from Home Depot, the same amount cost $264.87. We will see how this year goes – the dirt was described as 1/3 dirt, 1/3 sand, 1/3 horse manure and we mixed in some compost that we had in our garden.

Thanks Ladies!

No, thank you for sharing your research, Lynette!

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