sophigirl Yep, you can put down the cardboard, newspaper, soil, and other goodies in your beds and the plants will grow. In your shoes, since it's brand-new beds, I think I'd want them down as soon as possible. Though you can plant everything whenever you get the beds laid out, I think you'd feel more secure if you can get them laid out now and then plant a week or two later. It gives things time to settle, particularly if you're unable to shave off the sod some way. One guy on the internet showed how he removed the sod, turned it upside down so the roots were up, then put down the cardboard, newspaper, and soil for his raised beds. It was a matter of mixing "browns and greens" for fast decomposition of the sod and encouragement of earthworms, who apparently love the glue in corrugated cardboard.

Trust is the problem. It helps to know the source or at least to know someone who has had good experiences with the source. FYI, there are construction contractors that occasionally give away "clean fill" but there is no way to easily know how clean it really is and what is "clean" for one purpose might not seem so "clean" for another. If you need any old dirt in a hurry that would do but I think you want something with more assurances than that. Some contractors also scrape off the top soil when starting a new development and sell it which might be a way for you to get some good soil but, of course, leaves the new homeowners with lousy soil.

So we finished our new raised vegetable beds and thought I would update this thread. We ended up having only enough soil from our old beds to fill two of the new raised beds. We also used all of our store of organic matter, which wasn't a lot and compost dug out of a passive compost pile that had been there for over a year which we used to fill the bottom half of those two beds with the soil from the old vegetable beds for the top half. Then we had three beds still to fill! I seriously considered making up a mix using pine bark fines etc., but reading along, what jumped out at me was the percentage of organic matter that is recommended in your native soil. In our old vegetable beds, I added a lot more organic matter, maybe up to 50% and the soil would shrink back and I'd have to keep adding more every year. So, in the end I decided to at least check to see if I could find some 'organic' native soil to purchase. I called around for recommendations and someone did direct me to someone who might have what I needed. And they did. They also added a small percentage of organic compost and had amended the soil with organic amendments, like alfalfa meal and worm castings etc. It sounded like just what I wanted. So we had them deliver it and filled the remaining beds. I will be interested to see how the produce does this year and compare the old soil we had, with the new soil. The new soil is also clay soil, and it doesn't drain as well as my own soil or the soil from the old vegetable beds with all the organic matter, that water just runs through. This new soil, the water puddles on the top for a little bit, but a layer of mulch slows it down enough. I hope to amend the new soil, either with cover crops or mixed lawn clippings and chopped leaves in the fall. So that's the end of that story. Thank you all for all the help and answering so many questions. :-) The last bed filled with new soil.

Well, I went to Scotts and read the MSDS. The product lists compost, peat, manure and poultry manure. So I don't think that there is any of the 'blue stuff' mixed in. Why gloves? Well organic products contain a lot of bacteria, possibly some that might cause a skin infection if rubbed into a cut. But getting back to your question of 'now what?', I think you have a heck of a good start on soil for your raised bed, now what you need is mineral component for good drainage. If I were in your shoes I would find a supplier of large bags of perlite, mix maybe 2 parts soil, 1 part perlite. Equal parts would not be too much, the experts have said. I used to think that sand would be the thing to use, what could be cheaper than sand and it drains reasonably well. I was shocked to find that per cubic foot, perlite can be price competitive with sand. Many container gardeners agree that perlite is superior to sand. I buy my perlite at a horticulture supply company, but for a couple of dollars more a bag my Home Depot has it as well. I do note that in my area Home Depot has play sand on sale for the next day or two, so that would be another choice. But one thing is for sure, you can get a lot of mixed advice on soil formulas. I think you need: organic material to hold moisture mineral content for drainage allowing air to enter the soil fertilizer, either organic or chemical If you have those 3 in good supply, I guess you will have no problems regardless of the exact contents and percentages. Gary