when are you sowing your garden this year?

I've gotten another windfall of filler material from my neighbor who wanted some trees removed in his backyard. Pictures are yesterday, then today. I'm ready to fill with dirt, but I really have no idea how to go about it. How much can be fill dirt, how much top soil, etc? I'm really looking for answers relating to depth so I know how much to acquire. I know we're all probably tired of these painfully slow updates, but I'd really like to have a successful garden this year.

Yesterday:
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/p-...=w1698-h955-no


Today: All three boxes are just as full.
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/_E...Q=w538-h955-no

Are you looking to create mounds, as with most hugelkulture? If so, I would think that getting the amount of soil that you would obtain to fill your planter boxes would be the way to go, because as your branches break down, the soil level will settle.

Before you put your soil in, have you thought about rigging up some sort of irrigation system that will be beneath the soil? Such as a PVC pipe with small holes drilled everywhere, with a connector for a hose outside of the planter box? I would have suggested a soaker hose (because I was intending to do something like that with a soaker hose for OUR surprise hugelkutur mound, thanks to one of our chokecherries giving up the ghost, but I've read that the hoses tend to break down or crack.

I would get on part filler dirt, two parts compost, and one part topsoil. My reasoning is that you're going to soak the daylights out of the wood before you put any dirt on top. I'd 'lasagne' compost and filler dirt, then dump in the topsoil. When it starts to get warmer, I'd add lots of worms (have you thought of starting a worm colony?) and some organic fertilizer that won't burn the worms, while starting seedlings inside.

That's what I plan on doing, but we don't have nifty planter boxes. I do, however, have five full-sized hay bales. I'm going to hay-bale garden, surrounding a small hugelkultur hill. Once the snow finally disappears from our backyard, I'll take photos and we can compare notes to see what's working!

One more thing- have you put something inside of your planters to keep the soil from oozing out of the bottom? I've seen that happen when there are heavy rains.

I haven't thought about a soaker hose, I just assumed I'd water with a regular hose every day after work, or some kind of mister set-up that you see in flower beds.
As far as soil settling, I imagine if have to refill to bring up the level year.

I wasn't going to make mounds, just fill the boxes until they are nearly flush with the top rail. Looking forward to seeing what everyone else does this year.

Now that I'm not falling asleep when responding I have a few more things.
How are you going to use the hay bales? Is it hay or straw?
I think I might need to add a board across the bottom, and then two vertical boards across the front of each box before any dirt goes in, as the weight of the branches is already pushing out the metal. I chose to lay the corrugated horizontally, and I still think that was the better way to go, but I can't be sure.
I thought of worms yesterday and plan to do that as well. Once all the wood is soaked and dirt has been added, I plan on soaking the dirt and covering the entire area with straw. Straw bales are pretty cheap at only $8 each. That white plastic bag under the chicken coop is actually one of those grain bags I got from HBARleatherneck. It is holding the remaining straw bale I bought for the chicken. Keeping it under there keeps it dry, and insulates the coop from below at the same time.

EDIT: What is everyone's feeling about tossing dog poop into the compost area? *Not the compost I'd use in a chicken run.

I cut the metal so the corrugations would go vertically and put a top rail on to try and prevent the sides from bowing out, they still did somewhat.

https://www.ar-15.co/threads/129519-...=1#post1885208

I could not think of or find any filler material that would have been significantly cheaper than bulk garden soil so I just used that for the whole bed.

Where did you get the garden soil, just a home improvement store?

in bulk from Pioneer.

It's straw. I may buy a few more, and make a couple of squares or rectangles, with the hugelkultur in the center. You prep the bales a couple of weeks before bringing out the plants, soaking them down, fertilizing and creating spaces for the plants.

I would not use dog poop in the compost. You don't really want proteins in your compost (so I've read) and there can be certain bacteria in dog poo that would raise havoc with the breaking down of material. I wouldn't want to add in any meat-eating mammalian poo- dog or cat. Add in alpaca, horse, sheep, plant, chicken, fish poo to your compost...but I'd avoid the plentiful supply you no doubt get from your canines.

Yep, dog poo = bad garden poo. Not a good idea. Really interested in your progress though.

Okay, easy enough to keep throwing dog poo in the trash then. Thanks everyone. Looking at it today, I really need put some extra support on my boxes like Newracer has done. I'm trying not to let what I think is a good idea turn into garbage due to laziness. It's a constant battle.