[shay]

I am introducing some raised beds to my plot, however not sure of the best technique to fill them, sounds silly but let me explain.

The previous owner for some reason had scraped a huge top layer off and now sits proudly at the front of my plot which is a pain however I will be using this to fill the beds which are currently built and in place. One neighbour literally sives every bit of soil that goes into his, plus as a weed deterent he puts cardboard underneath to act as a temp barrier then mixes with compost and manure where as another literally fills with soil, not quite as picky with regards the seive, just removes what weeds he can see so plenty of clumps etc and puts on top of the soil on the base of the bed which has been de-weeded to an extent and then tops with manure, so takes him only a fraction of the time to do.

Which method should I employ? Cardboard, sieve, compost, manure or de-weed, bung other de-weeded soil from pile and manure?

[Lady Lottie]

Probably depends on how much work you want to do afterwards weeding?  And also on what you want to grow in it - on the manure side of things.

I chucked soil and manure in, picked out the obvious nasties, mixed it around and left it at that - but that is because time was short and.....also........I am a bit lazy sometimes!

Do it the way you want to do it, I say.

[Ice]

Do a proper job first time even though it's harder work.  If you have clay soil add some sharp sand as well.  No need to fill to the top as you will be adding more compost/manure over the seasons anyway.