[Cam67]

Hi, first post...recently moved to Bourne, Lincolnshire and built a raised bed for my future vegetables. It can hold 2.1 cubic meters of soil/compost or 2110 LTR's to be exact, I thought this was great until I started to price up the costs of soil & compost. My first question is could anyone recommend a provider of both near Bourne that are cheap? The second is that I read Mushroom compost is the way to go & Mushroom factories sell it, is this true? Any help appreciated.

[Yorkie]

Welcome to the site 

I'm just going to move you over to Grow Your Own where more veggie people will see your post 

[Rexmundi]

To get started, and to keep costs down, acquire, beg compost or top-soil from wherever you can. If you have access to manure you could fill them with that to begin with?

I'm in the same boat as you after creating a couple of raised beds this year, and managed to get some free compost from my local council, but I could have done with 20 x more than I got.

Although my beds are shallow its not stopped me planting onions and leeks this year. After harvesting and when I have some home-made compost I will look to build them up. Also have access to tons of manure, so will fill them with this over winter before digging that in next Spring.

[fred-quimby]

Hi, and welcome.  Someone on here advised me to use the soil between the beds so that could save you a bit of money.

[mumofstig]

Yes, you can do that (use soil from the paths) and digging the soil already inside the bed will raise the level at least a couple of inches 

Spent mushrrom compost is what you buy from mushroom growers - they replace the growing medium regularly 

[surbie100]

Do you need to fill them from the start? (ie are they resting on anything other than soil?)

They will fill up over time with compost you make and other conditioners (manure) you add to the beds. Digging over will raise them quite a bit I find, and as MoS says,  and the beds will benefit from being fluffier and aired (other than for growing brassicas)