ᐅ Use excavated soil or fresh topsoil?

Hello,

behind our newly built house, we have two large piles of excavated soil. This is topsoil close to the surface, as we built without a basement. We are wondering if we can reuse this soil for the garden after processing it, such as removing roots, weeds, etc., or if we should have it transported away and bring in fresh topsoil.

Before construction, the entire area was agricultural land. I am in contact with the farmer and could ask if he used any special fertilizers or other substances on the soil in the past. Do you have any tips on what specific questions I should ask to better assess the suitability of the soil?

Thank you and best regards

As long as there is no load-bearing requirement, I would always reuse the existing excavation material. For hedges and lawns, weeds and root residues are generally not a problem. For planting beds, using weed-free soil can be beneficial, but this is then not just topsoil.

The question also is how much you want or need to fill in?

I wouldn’t use topsoil for more than 30-50 cm (12-20 inches) anyway.
That means that below that, a "fill soil" is almost always suitable.

I can’t really estimate that yet. We first need to cut down the large hills and roughly spread the soil; then we’ll see what level we end up with. The geothermal drilling is scheduled for Friday, and during that we’ll check how clayey the soil is. If necessary, some sand may need to be mixed in, which could add another 10cm (5 inches) in height. Thanks for the assessments so far. It’s encouraging that we probably won’t need to bring in several cubic meters of soil.

You may need to add a substantial amount of topsoil.