In order to fill my raised beds in the spring of 2015, I turned over the soil with my spade shovel to the length of the shovel blade (about 18”), placed the wooden frame on the turned area and made it roughly level. It’s pretty hard to get it perfect and the whole thing will always shift after being filled and watered so I didn’t worry too much about making it precisely level. With the frame level and in place around an area of turned earth, I added a mix of soil and compost until the frames were full. I also added to this mixture a few handfuls of seabird guano and a handful of Texas Greensand. I then turned everything inside the frame again as deeply as I could before breaking up any surface clods with my hori-hori and smoothing out the surface with my bow rake.
