Hi Kerry, welcome to permies. You're definitely on the right track. I garden in raised beds, and I found a
local nursery that sells a soil blend that they mix on site at their facility, and it's a blend of topsoil,
wood chips, sand, compost, and earthworm castings. I purchased that by the
yard and they loaded it into the back of my pickup and I just backed my truck up to my beds and pushed it out with a steel rake. May I suggest looking into whether a local nursery in your area offers something similar, as it will be a fraction of the cost of buying bags of soil. It looks like you'll need about a yard and a half to fill your raised bed, and keep in mind it will settle like 30% in volume. If you fill the bed 10 inches deep, I guarantee you it will be considerably less in 6 months. If you fill the bed with quality soil, the earthworms will come. They will find it. If you want to add some extra quality compost, it certainly won't hurt. You mentioned you're a beginner and I would like to make two more suggestions. One is, while you at it in the beginning, consider adding minerals to remineralize this soil. Products you can find include, but are not limited to, glacial rock dust, sea-90, azomite... Adding more minerals to the soil will grow better, more nutritious crops. The second recommendation is once you plant whatever it is you choose to grow,
mulch your raised bed. Mulch will keep the soil from drying out and baking in the sun, and it will keep the soil from developing a crust, which inhibits
water flow and the soils ability to breathe. You can use wood chips if you want, I currently use
straw. Straw is cheap and one bale will cover that bed. Keep in mind not all straws are created equal. I'll bet dollars to donuts a bale from a big box store like Home Cheapo is from genetically modified wheat, and that straw is laden with chemicals that will cause problems in your new raised bed. Perhaps see if there is a local farmer who grows wheat without chemicals. It doesn't have to be labeled organic, as I was able to find a local guy who wasn't certified organic but didn't
spray chemicals and that straw has worked out well for me. And again, it doesn't have to be straw. If you find a nursery that has that soil blend, they'll have traditional wood chip mulch by the yard too, and I bet they'll
sell you a half yard, and you'll have some leftover, which if you have a spot somewhere off in the yard, dump it in a pile and it will slowly decompose turning into good stuff that you can add to your raised bed come next spring.
One more thing: this fall when the garden is done, don't pull dead plants like a
tomato plant. Grab some shears, and cut off the plant at or just beneath the soil level and leave all it's roots undisturbed in the soil to decompose, depositing vitamins and minerals in the roots back into the soil for next years crops and also providing food for microbes and
fungi living in the soil. I'm crazy about
gardening and growing my own food, and I want you to be successful. Putting time, effort and money into a new garden just to have problems and not get good results can be very demoralizing and defeating. By doing simple things like mulching, it will provide habitat for all sorts of bugs and worms that will make a home in the soil and aide in creating a healthy soil
food web. And that will bring you success and a smile on your face when you go pick delicious healthy food out of that raised bed, and you'll likely get hooked on
gardening too
