Soil Calculator for Texas Raised Beds, Planters and Tired Ground
Enter your project dimensions
The costliest mistake this tool has to fix is buying growing blend by the foot of depth when roots only work the top of it. Two hypothetical jobs on the same 96 square feet make the point. Two new 4 by 12 planters filled to 14 inches take 112 cubic feet, which is 4.15 cubic yards and, at the weight of blended soil, 4.15 tons. Reviving 96 square feet of existing bed that has baked hard by working 3 inches of the same blend into it takes 24 cubic feet, 0.89 of a cubic yard, under a ton. Identical footprint, and one order is more than four times the other.
Filling a knee-high planter without paying for blend all the way down
A raised bed taller than about 18 inches does not need garden blend from the base up. Roots on a vegetable crop work the upper 8 to 12 inches, and everything below that is structure. Put cheaper material in the bottom third, coarse organic matter that will break down in place or plain subsoil, and keep the blend for the layer that does the growing.
Take a hypothetical 4 by 8 bed with 24-inch sides, so 32 square feet of footprint. The bottom 10 inches: 32 x 10 / 12 = 26.67 cubic feet, 0.99 of a cubic yard, 1.19 tons of Fill Dirt. The top 14 inches: 32 x 14 / 12 = 37.33 cubic feet, 1.38 cubic yards, 1.38 tons of Garden Soil. Run this page twice, once per layer, and order them as two lines.
The same logic applies to ground-level beds cut into heavy clay. Rather than excavating and replacing a bed at full depth, mix 2 to 3 inches of blend into the top 6 inches of what is already there, and repeat it for a couple of seasons. It uses a third of the material and a third of the lifting, and roots and worms carry the blend down further than a shovel will. Full replacement is for beds spoiled by construction debris or contamination, not for beds that have simply worn out.
Adding beds one at a time instead of averaging them
Rectangle mode takes a length and a width in feet. Circle mode takes a diameter, which handles a round planter or a tree ring. Multiple areas mode holds up to five and totals them, and that is the mode for a vegetable garden, because five beds of different sizes entered separately give a true total while one averaged rectangle gives you a number that fits none of them.
Depth runs from 0.25 to 24 inches. Use 4 to 6 for amending an existing bed, 6 for a new bed cut into the ground, and 12 or more for an empty raised planter. Measure the inside height of a planter rather than estimating it, because two inches of error across several beds is most of a cubic yard. Choose the material, decide about the box marked add 5% extra for compaction and spillage, and the results come back in cubic yards, tons and cubic feet, with an Email my quote button if you want them in writing.
The one material where the yardage and the tonnage read the same
Blended garden soil is light for its bulk. This site publishes it at about 2,000 lb per cubic yard, which works out at exactly 1.00 ton to the yard, so on this page the two output figures match and there is nothing to convert. Screened topsoil is heavier at about 2,200 lb, or 1.10 tons per yard, and fill dirt heavier again at about 2,400 lb, or 1.20. Pick the material you actually intend to order before you read the tonnage, or the weight will belong to something else.
The volume side is the same short chain used across these tools. Area in square feet, times depth in inches, divided by 12, gives cubic feet. Divide by 27 for cubic yards. Bulk soil is measured out by the yard, and the ton figure tells you what is arriving on the truck.
Ordering above the rim, because compost keeps settling
Blends with compost in them consolidate as the organic fraction breaks down, commonly 10 percent in the first few weeks and as much as 20 over a longer run. Fill a planter proud of its rim, water it in heavily, and top it up once rather than trying to hit the line on day one. Beds carrying heavy planting usually ask for an inch or two again each spring, and that is normal rather than a sign anything was short.
That settling is the reason to round an order up to the next convenient quantity instead of shaving it. The 5 percent box handles spillage and the material that stays in the wheelbarrow. It does not cover compost settling, so treat the two allowances separately. A bed left dished after settling is harder to plant into than a bed that arrived slightly generous, and the spare goes into containers or along a fence line without any effort.
Bed, lawn or level: which job this page sizes
The tools split by job rather than by product name, and picking wrong is the other way an order goes sideways.
Garden Soil is topsoil blended with compost and is what this calculator is built around. It is for vegetable plots, flower beds, raised planters and containers, anywhere something is going to be planted straight into it.
Top Soil is screened rather than blended, and it belongs under a lawn or in finish grading. Lawn depths and the topdressing arithmetic live on the topsoil calculator.
Fill Dirt is compactable subsoil for changing grade, closing holes and building the body of a bed or berm. It is sized on the dirt calculator, and it is deliberately low in organic matter so it stays where it is put.
Once you have a yardage, open the product page, set the quantity and a date, and give the delivery ZIP at checkout. Ask for the load to go on a tarp if the drop spot is a driveway, because bulk soil marks concrete and folding a tarp beats scrubbing. Shredded Mulch over the finished beds is a separate order, sized on the mulch calculator, and through a long dry summer it does more for the beds than another inch of blend would.
Common questions
The beds are a volume I measured in inches. Why is there a weight on the result at all?
Cubic yards tell you how much space the soil fills, and that is the figure to order against for beds. The tonnage tells you what is being unloaded, which matters for the drop spot and for anyone wheelbarrowing it. Garden blend is the convenient case, since 2,000 lb to the yard makes the two numbers identical.
Should I enter the depth I want after it settles, or before?
Enter the depth you are filling to. Soil is not compacted on a bed the way base is, so the figure you type is the figure you pour in. What comes off afterwards is compost settling, and the answer to that is the top-up, not a bigger first order.
I have a round planter and a ring bed around a tree. How do I size those?
Circle mode, entering the diameter in feet. A 5 foot round planter filled 12 inches deep is about 19.6 square feet, 19.6 cubic feet, 0.73 of a cubic yard, and the same 0.73 tons in garden blend. Add it as one of your five areas if you are ordering it with the beds.
Can I check the total myself before I order?
Multiply the bed length by its width, multiply by the depth in inches, divide by 12, then divide by 27. That is your cubic yards. For garden soil the tonnage is the same number, for topsoil multiply by 1.1, and for fill dirt by 1.2.
Two beds at the same depth came back with different tonnages. What changed?
The material. Volume is fixed by your measurements, but the weight per yard is not: blend is about 2,000 lb, screened topsoil about 2,200, and fill dirt about 2,400. Switch the dropdown and the cubic yards hold steady while the tons move.
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