Garden Rip-Off?

A really interesting question came across my desk today:

” Hi I am not sure how to put this but I think I got ripped off.  I hired a guy from a well known garden center to help me build a raised 8x10garden that I had last summer (not raised) so he advised me to buy 36total bags of soil including manure,etc.  Yet there was not enough and had to buy more, ending up with 50 bags and cinder blocks. The soil is still 3 inches from the top and I planted all sorts of great veggies and herbs yet the soil does not seem rich or high enough. With everything I spent over $800.00! Did I miss something? Please Help….This guy was rude and ugly to me when I asked him to come finish job!”

Hi there,

Just doing some quick math: if your bed were 12″ tall then you’d need about 40 – 2 cubic foot bags of planting medium to fill the bed.  If the bags of soil were 1.5 cubic feet each,then you’d need 53 bags.  So if your bed is less than 12″ tall, it’s somewhere in between. So his math could have been off, but I don’t know for sure without knowing how tall the beds are.

Soil does settle a little, but my main question would be what brand of soil medium did you use?  There is a huge difference in the soil market.  I tend toward the higher quality stuff that runs about $8-9 per bag (these are Los Angeles prices too), whereas Home Depot sells some stuff that I feel is a lesser-quality product for $3-4 per bag. I tell my clients that soil and labor are usually the largest cost items on the ticket.  Since good soil is the foundation of a successful garden, I believe it’s worth the expense.  Just for the record, my favorite commercially available soil amendment is Master Nursery Garden Center’s Bumper Crop.  It’s sludge-free and has worm castings and bat guano, among other things.

There are ways you can amend your soil if it doesn’t look like it’s doing its job for you.  Top dressing with coffee grounds will provide a nice low-level nitrogen fertilizer for you, and if you already drink coffee, you can get it for from from your coffee maker (yours or Starbucks).  You might try testing your soil for the top 3 nutrients – NPK – to see where you stand before adding anything more.

Rudeness: Now as far as I can tell, there’s no place for rudeness in gardening, so I can’t explain that part.  Maybe it’s best that he’s out of your life, so you and your garden can get to know each other better now without interruption (trying to take the positive road on that one). Whomever helps you in the garden should be knowledgeable and should state ahead of time what the scope of work is for the project.  That way you know what you’re in for, and you don’t end up with surprises in the end.

I hope this helps you determine whether you got ripped off or not.  And more than that, I hope your new garden brings you great joy this spring.

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