How much soil will I need?

[GH85Carrera]

My master gardener wife has had me building yet another new flower bed where a tree had to be removed. Lots of fun digging through tree roots to put the sprinkler head in there.



It is 72 inches x 76 inches but there is a slope. It is 17 inches at the low end and just 7 inches at the top. That is filling it with a 2 or 3 inches of the top.



There is some construction debris and the new sprinkler head in there, but we can ignore that. It will be out of the way on the bottom.

We can go to a local (4 miles away) place that sells great "rich mix" soil by the front end loader scoop. They are pretty good at guessing a lesser load, and I know I don't need a full pickup bed load. A friend will let me use his long bed pickup, and we will have the fun of shoveling it all out into a wheel barrow to dump into the flower bed.

So how much soil (not dirt!) do we need to buy?

[vash]

I see 1.5 yards. Assuming you’re gonna stamp it down some.

[908/930]

I get 38cu feet so about 1.5 yards. Wheel barrow? Cant you just back up the truck to the bed?

[Arizona_928]

Get the ft^3 or yard and convert to weight.

Obtain a tarp and lay it flat on the bed before they fill it up. You might need to cover the top depending on local laws, so get a long one. Wrap the soil like a burrito.

Makes unloading/moving the soil a pretty simple job

[masraum]

72" x 76" x 12" (avg of 7 & 17) (~65700in^3). If you're saying it's 2-3" below the top of the surround, then subtract that from the 12", although it'll settle a bit.

1 yd^3 = ~46700 in^3. So ~1.5 yds.

A friends truck? Dude, this looks like the perfect job for the Elky!

[rfuerst911sc]

That will eat up 2 front end loader scoops .

[GH85Carrera]

Originally Posted by masraum

72" x 76" x 12" (avg of 7 & 17) (~65700in^3). If you're saying it's 2-3" below the top of the surround, then subtract that from the 12", although it'll settle a bit.

1 yd^3 = ~46700 in^3. So ~1.5 yds.

A friends truck? Dude, this looks like the perfect job for the Elky!

The Elky is not a real pickup. I might get 800 pounds in it without damage. It has nice stainless trim around the windows and the bed edges. Soil trapped under it is a real challenge to clean out.

My friend's truck is a real work truck, and much more capable of taking the load. The calculations I see on line: The average weight of a cubic yard of compost is between 1,080 and 1,350 pounds. If I need 1.5 yards that is way over the 800 pound max for the El Camino.

[KFC911]

The bobcat loader scoops around here aren't even a full yard fwiw.

Soooo.... how much will you actually need?

A little bit more than you actually get

[Tobra]

I like burning tree stumps out. Turn it into a rocket stove and light that candle.

[masraum]

Originally Posted by KC911

Soooo.... how much will you actually need?

A little bit more than you actually get

Exactly that much!

[GH85Carrera]

Originally Posted by Tobra

I like burning tree stumps out. Turn it into a rocket stove and light that candle.

We had a guy come over and cut it down, and grind the stump



It was the tree on the right. An ice storm tore it up, and the cold weather just killed a lot more of it. It is gone, and now it will be a flower bed. It was not totally dead, and would never have burned. Grinding out the major part of the stump helped a lot. The little tree in the front died, and now it has a Oklahoma Redbud in it's place.

The rectangle garden is one of the first we put in long ago.


This is one we did a few years ago, in the first year of planting.


All of that used to be grass I mowed.

[Zeke]

Glen, you're right that is not a job for the Elky. You might be surprised at delivery prices if the landscape supply isn't 100 miles away.

In typical landscape jargon you need 1.5 yds. which is 3 scoops on a typical tractor loader. Yeah, lightweight soil, 3 (actual) scoops and an 8' bed would be crown full.

One cubic yard (2 scoops) will weigh about 1.5 tons (3000 lbs.). Soils typically weigh a little less, approximately 1000-1200 pounds per scoop. Mulches weigh even less, about 400-500 lbs.



https://www.themulchman.com/faqs.html

[TimT]

There is a very interesting paradox regarding excavations, and backfilling..

If you accurately excavate a 10x10x10 space.. One would think you would need just 1000 CF to fill the hole... But if you get 1000CF of accurately measured fill for backfill .. it would be to much.... You cant compact/consolidate the fill to the same state as the material was in situ..

Trivial things you learn after 40 years in construction management and no help at all

[unclebilly]

Glen - nice looking place.

Tractor loader buckets are all over the place. There is no ‘normal’.

Where I go they have loaders with 7 or 9 yard buckets… 1 and a bit scoops fills my tandem gravel truck. They also have scales on the loaders so they don’t overload me. Sometimes, I load myself…

My yard tractor has a 22.6 cubic foot (.83 yard) bucket. And it’s the bigger bucket for that tractor.

[wdfifteen]

Beautiful place. Your wife is a great landscape designer.

[KFC911]

Originally Posted by wdfifteen

Beautiful place. Your wife is a great landscape designer.

.... and Glen is fantastic at following her instructions and providing "free" labor !

[GH85Carrera]

Originally Posted by KC911

.... and Glen is fantastic at following her instructions and providing "free" labor !

I get rewarded later!

[Rusty Heap]

To the OP, was it really that hard to multiply L x W x H and its 27 cu ft to a yard?

[Zeke]

Originally Posted by unclebilly

Glen - nice looking place.

Tractor loader buckets are all over the place. There is no ‘normal’.

Where I go they have loaders with 7 or 9 yard buckets… 1 and a bit scoops fills my tandem gravel truck. They also have scales on the loaders so they don’t overload me. Sometimes, I load myself…

My yard tractor has a 22.6 cubic foot (.83 yard) bucket. And it’s the bigger bucket for that tractor.

And yet landscape supply places tend to use the typical bucket that comes on a back
hoe. I suppose there are minor differences but a yard is a yard and that's the unit used to measure and charge for the material.

Petty post, I know. You are correct in general. Your bucket probably is close to a half a yard when the bucket is spilling out due to an aggressive scoop. It's never a level scoop for me, always over filled to whatever will stay in the bucket.

[jyl]

Call around, find a local bulk soil place (ask your favorite nursery for recs), have 1.5 yd of their planting mix delivered to a tarp spread next to the planter. Cost me $65/yd delivered, and I’m in an expensive city. If they only deliver whole yards or have a two yard minimum, you can always find a use for half a yard of good soil - top up existing planters and pots, spread on lawn, etc.