My husband is building me a new raised bed over existing turf. The plan is to put in the sides, cover the turf (mowed as low as possible) with layers of newspaper and fill with a growing mix. We plan to get this finished before the end of October and will plant there next spring (beginning probably in April with small daylily seedlings).

How many layers of newspaper will be adequate as a base to smother the turf?

I was planning to buy a topsoil/compost mix and fill the beds with that but was not sure what else, if anything I might need to add to that.

We also have a lot of left over shredded wood mulch which has been sitting in a pile for more than a year and which my husband tells me is now decomposed to soil/compost? In addition, I have a very big compost pile made from tossing all my plant trimmings and weeds in a heap and letting it rot for a year or more. This does contain weed seeds but that does not bother me as I can easily hand weed the raised beds.

Ideally, I would use the decayed wood mulch and my own compost in the beds but what else might I need, if anything? I don't really have any extra soil to scrape up from my yard since it is all in garden beds and grass.

Any advice, especially from someone who has done this before with successful results is appreciated.