Came Home to a Pile of Dirt

I’m in the process of starting a raised garden bed in my backyard (will be posting on that eventually), and today I had soil delivered while I was away at work. My raised garden bed needs 50 cubic feet, and I also needed a little extra for some grow bags for potatoes. Sounds like I know what I’m talking about right? Well you would be wrong! Last summer I moved my family from a claustrophobic subdivision, into the countryside on an acre of land. I’m a computer scientist by trade, with no experience in gardening, but I am determined to work towards sustainability, through hydroponics, aquaponics, and soil based gardening (with some automated irrigation thrown in).

Back to the topic at hand, I needed a little more than 50 cubic feet of soil that would be suitable for my freshly built raised garden bed and potato bags. I found a wonderful local-to-me landscaping material supplier, that have amazing prices (half the price of big box stores), that sells various soils by the cubic yard. So then it was time for some math, and since mathematics is my second teachable (I’m also a certified teacher, for real), I felt confident in figuring out how many cubic yards I needed.

The conversion I know is 1 yard = 3 feet which would mean that (1 yard)^3 = 1 cubic yard, and (3 feet)^3 = 27 cubic feet. Following me? Good. I need 50 cubic feet, and 27 cubic feet is too small, but with my estimation powers, I can tell that double that amount would be greater than 50 cubic feet and will be equivalent to 2 cubic yards. I’m expecting 54 cubic feet of soil to be delivered when I request 2 cubic yards from my local supplier. That should suffice for my garden bed and some potato bags!

I arrange for the gentleman to deliver my soil on the Monday following our conversation (which is this very day that I am writing this post). My parents had an envelope of cash to give to the man upon delivery of the soil on to our driveway, and were prepared to greet our soil delivery bright and early in the day.

When I came home from work, I pulled into my driveway expecting to have a large mound of soil to transport to my raised garden beds in the back via wheelbarrow and shovel. What I came home to instead, was a small pile of dirt, see picture below.

This is not going to fill my raised garden bed, shown in this picture below.

Now my plans for planting kale this weekend is ruined! Oh the horror! Oh the humanity! I got ripped off! At least that is what I thought till I saw the shape my father was in when I greeted him. He was exhausted! Completely wiped out on the couch, with my 2 year old snuggling on his lap. Turns out, my wonderful father spent the whole day, shovelling soil into the wheelbarrow and filling the 50 cubic foot raised garden bed in the backyard… and multiple containers. I had to see this for myself, and you can see too in the next two pictures.

I’m no math teacher… oh wait, I am… but it looks like I have been delivered far more than 2 cubic yards of soil.

I can’t let all this lovely soil wash away or go to waste, so we will see what shenanigans I can get up to this weekend. I have a project in mind. A very shady project in mind. If you have any recommendations for what I can plant in a shady, zone 6a with a hardiness index of 62 (ha! It totally sounds like I know what I’m talking about), then please comment! I’m thinking hostas?