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


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?


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.

Hi Tim,

Thanks for your post, really helpful :-)

Regards,

Sam

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.

£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.

"Sammy25" wrote in message
...

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.

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