Are you asking if you could mix the soil in the forest bed in with regular soil to make a bed? Sounds like this would be an excellent amendment to your garden because it contains composted plant material which will enrich your soil.

That is my intention. I started a little bit tonight. Our soil isn't wonderful...a lot of sand and clay. We are having a hard time growing grass (of course we do have enough green weeds to add color!) due to our contractor brought us top fill instead of top soil like he was supposed to. It was full of rocks. I have spent the summer raking, raking, and raking rocks. I am trying to utilize whatever we have to work with. We have a stream with boggy areas all around the perimeter so I have used branches and rocks as fill. I thought that I would put my soil "mixture" over that and hopefully whatever I plant will eventually grow roots long enough to get through the rocks to the rich boggy soil underneath. I just hope it works! We have a lot of wild flowers and ferns growing throughout the area by the stream...I just want to add more.

Do you mean to remove the forest soil from the forest area and use it in garden beds? This will deplete and diminish the forest area. Please leave the forest soil where it is and create beds there, do not remove the soil.

Don't fill in the areas beside the stream with loose rocks, branches and soil. It may damage the stream, plants already there and any fish in the stream. There are many native wetland plants that are becoming rare due to draining, filling and drying of wetlands. If you already have stream side ferns and flowers, give Mother Nature a little time to recover from the disruption that building the house caused and likely the area will fill in. Do not count on plants finding soil under rocks, the air spaces in the rocks may kill their roots. Why not just plant wet feet loving plants directly into the wet soil?

If you have made an island in the middle of the stream bed, you may find it washes out in the spring or during heavy rains. Adding soil to it will result in silt being washed into the stream which is not good for the stream or for plants and fish in the stream.

No, I have no intention of removing the forest area. I love our forest. I just want to do something with the fallen trees and stumps right next to our house. Our forest is our pride and joy. It ends against a gorgeous swamp filled with blue herrons and other wildlife. The fallen trees however are right where we plan on putting our garage so that area needs to be cleaned up. I would rather utilize what I have so that some good can come out of it.

As for my little island...it is nestled between two large trees in an area of muck. Maybe it will stay (I outlined it with gigantic rocks and smaller rocks) and maybe it won't. Most of this summer the stream was dried out being that we have had a drought this year. Hopefully, it will last during the spring thaw, if it doesn't lesson learned.

Thanks for your concern...I would never disrupt the forest bed area in the forest.

Glad to hear you do not plan on removing forest soil. The best I can suggest for the fallen trees is to rent a chipper and chip the material to use as a mulch on garden beds.