On 4/9/2013 10:18 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!!

How the bagging process works: there's a huge mound of soil piled up
on the ground. A bobcat operator scoops up bucketsful of the soil and
dumps it into a hopper, from which it eventually ends up in bags.
Here's the thing: when the bobcat gets to the last of the soil, it is
scraping junk off the ground along with the remaining soil, and it
ends up in the bags. So it's the luck of the draw. Most bags will not
have the junk in it, but the bags that were filled from the last of
the dirt mound probably will. Buy a few bags elsewhere and they'll
almost certainly be fine.

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.

Do you think that for that price the product is going to be sifted,
and dried, and hermetically sealed? No. It won't.

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!!

You've been given the best solution on alt.home.repair, you just
didn't like what you were told: hire a company to deliver a truckload
of soil, and either have them do the labor involved with moving and
dumping it into your fill site, or hire another company to do the
labor for you, or do it yourself.

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.

If it is that deep, it was constructed that deep for a reason. Most
often the reason is drainage. It was probably designed to be a runoff
channel for water from your property and adjacent properties to drain
into, thus keeping the surrounding land reasonably dry and firm, not
marshy and spongy.

It would be a good idea to talk to any long-term residents of the
neighborhood to find out what they know about that ditch. You should
also contact your city. If it is a mandated runoff channel, odds are
you cannot legally fill it in. You might be able to install a culvert
and then fill in around the culvert. You really don't know, which is
why you should call your city first. If they give you the all clear,
you can do whatever you want. But be warned - if it is a runoff
channel and you fill it in, you or your neighbors properties may end
up turning (back) into swampy or spongy land.

Case in point: a neighbor of mine installed a culvert in a 'drainage
ditch' (actually a creek) on his property, then filled it in. Since
doing that, he has a major water problem in his basement every time it
rains. Formerly, the excess water on his property drained into the
creek. But he filled the creek in, and with no place to go, the water
sits on his property, makes his yard soggy wet for days after every
rain, and winds up in his basement.

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.

A 40 lb bag of topsoil is approximately .5 cubic foot. The area you
want to fill will require approximately 5-6 cubic yards of fill. There
are 27 cubic feet in a cubic yard. So: 2 bags of topsoil per cubic
foot, 54 bags of topsoil per cubic yard. You'll need to buy between
270 and 324 bags of topsoil. Multiply that by the price per bag. And
think about how you are going to get all those bags home. How many
trips in your car will it take? Sure, you can pay for delivery - but
it'll cost you a lot more.

Now call your local landscape firm and ask how much they'd charge to
deliver 6 cubic feet of fill dirt, and how much extra they'd charge to
move it and dump it in your desired location. I can practically
guarantee that it won't cost much more than what you'd pay for all
those bags of topsoil - and you won't have to do any of the work.

I don't want to use the crappy $2 dollar a bag "Scotts" which is like
85% mulch and peat moss,

Why do you care, if it's only going to be used for fill? If you aren't
going to garden there, it makes little difference.

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've got to be trolling.