If you do decide to replace (and on the other thread I've posted my suggestions about asking the AG agent to visit,) you might post on Craigslist or somewhere similar and get someone who would like to have your slightly used, tenderly cared for soil to add to their own yard. They might even come and load it up themselves!

I always recommend starting with native soil and amending that into something long term. But admittedly, that's a personal preference. Take a look at what you have and perhaps you won't need to buy your foundation soil at all. You can still use walled raised beds. Here, where I live, once the native soil is turned/tilled, and organic matter is added, it raises more than 6", and I'm not kidding, as much as 18", depending on what's turned into the soil.

Using native though, is going to be dependent on its qualities and faults, as well as your gardening-style preferences.

then wait another 3-5 years for the biology to build up. add lots of organic matter to get it started. also check for tree roots under there, otherwise all this substitution is going to be completely ineffective.

I started looking for the pricey Gro-Well soil mix and I didn't find it in my Lowe's or Home Depot. What about the other types of "organic garden soil" that are found in these stores? Can they just be used out of the bag and dumped into the beds? Or do they have to be amended with vermiculite and/or peat moss?

The Gro-Well soil you refer to seems to be a potting soil and I find potting soils to be an overly expensive filler for any raise bed, not to mention that they really don't contain any real, mineral-based soil.

Personally, I tend to agree with rgreen48 that native soils should be the basis for a raised bed, amended as one sees fit with compost or other organic matter. Because the vast majority of raised beds are open to the earth on the bottom, they are NOT containers and do not require the very specialized drainage features of a container soil. Think of them more as just mounded or elevated inground planting areas but with rigid sides :-) Would you use a potting/container soil on a mounded inground planting area ??? Probably not!

Bagged soils will always be far more expensive than anything you can find in bulk. A full yard (27 cubic feet) of a good quality garden mix in my area will run about $35 delivered. The equivalent quantity of the Gro-Well product ($19.63 for 1.5 cubic feet advertised at HD) is just over $350!!! That's just crazy!!

If you do not have sufficient quantities of your own native soil to fill the raised beds - and many of us do not have piles of soil sitting around to be used elsewhere - then a bulk blended garden planting mix is the way to go. The mix my local supplier carries is 70% screened organic compost, 15% native soil, and 15% screened sand. This mix is recommended for "vegetable gardens, lawns, berms, raised beds and specialty projects." It IS a bit high on the organic side initially but that breaks down to more typical levels over the course of the growing season.

Not all bulk garden soil mixes are created equal so you do need to do some research and visual investigation of what's available in your area. But I would not recommend a bagged "potting soil" for raised beds both due to the expense and the lack of a mineral soil base and any organics. It will not produce the long term results you are looking for.

And finally, although I didn't respond to the previous thread about replacing the raised bed mix, I personally would not. I would just amend with whatever mineral/native soil I could get my hands on as well as a good quality compost. IME, unless dealing with a true, full-sided and bottomed container, I would never "replace" soil......just amend it to my preferences.

Problem is I don't have any local suppliers of bulk planting mix in my area.

Where are you?? Unless waaaayyyy out in the boonies, I bet there's one closer than you think. Otherwise, what would any landscape contractors do? They are huge users of bulk soil products.

Why are you going to replace the soil? What do you expect any new soil to be? What is the current soil like? How deep are those raised beds?

A good soil mix in any garden, not potting soil, is something with about 45 percent sand, 25 percent silt, 25 percent clay, and 5 percent organic matter. If you are going to spend money on a soil mix that is the best to get.

Perhaps these simple soil tests may be of some help determining what you have now,

1) Soil test for organic
material. From that soil sample put enough of the rest to make a 4 inch level in
a clear 1 quart jar, with a tight fitting lid. Fill that jar with water and
replace the lid, tightly. Shake the jar vigorously and then let it stand for 24
hours. Your soil will settle out according to soil particle size and weight.
For example, a good loam will have about 1-3/4 inch (about 45%) of sand on the
bottom. about 1 inch (about 25%) of silt next, about 1 inch (25%) of clay above
that, and about 1/4 inch (about 5%) of organic matter on the top.

2) Drainage. Dig a hole
1 foot square and 1 foot deep and fill that with water. After that water drains
away refill the hole with more water and time how long it takes that to drain
away. Anything less than 2 hours and your soil drains’ too quickly and needs
more organic matter to slow that drainage down. Anything over 6 hours and the
soil drains too slowly and needs lots of organic matter to speed it up.

3) Tilth. Take a handful
of your slightly damp soil and squeeze it tightly. When the pressure is
released the soil should hold together in that clump, but when poked with a
finger that clump should fall apart.

4) Smell. What does your
soil smell like? A pleasant, rich earthy odor? Putrid, offensive, repugnant
odor? The more organic matter in your soil the more active the soil bacteria
will be and the nicer your soil will smell, to a point. Too much organic matter
can be bad as well.

5) Life. How many
earthworms per shovel full were there? 5 or more indicates a pretty healthy soil. Fewer than 5,
according to the Natural Resources Conservation Service, indicates a soil that
is not healthy.

kimmq is kimmsr

The disease that has been killing basil plants is basil downy mildew. I'm finding lots of articles referring to it from the last couple of years. It's definitely been running rampant in New Jersey. Here's a good article that shows a lot of pictures of the disease.

https://growingsmallfarms.ces.ncsu.edu/growingsmallfarms-2014-basil-downy-mildew/

>>Basil downy mildew can be overlooked by growers because the initial symptoms tend to be subtle: the plants exhibit slightly yellowing leaves as their most noticeable symptom, which may resemble a nutritional deficiency. The dark fuzzy-looking sporulation occurs on the undersides of the leaves. The disease is serious because it renders the leaves unmarketable. The disease can be spread from infected seed or leaves or from wind-dispersed spores which can travel long distances.

I've certainly had leaves that looked like that from the top here in MO but I don't know if I've examined the undersides. I'll have to watch for that. I've had cases where one large branch of a basil wilts and dies within a few days, then another, till the whole plant is dead. Clearly a different disease but no idea which. Sorry for the tangent.