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First post here... so hello everyone. I am not really a self builder, but in recent times I have done a lot of home renovation. My partner and I bought a fully renovated middle terrace Victorian house less than 5 years ago. In the house everything is new, but shortcuts were made, so I took this as an opportunity to learn how to do new things, fix the issues and at the same time upgrade the house specs. I would be happy to talk about the projects I did and post some photos, but I am sparing you an incredibly boring and long first post. Anyway, now that the house is done, I am focusing on the garden. The new raised patio (porcelain tiles on Eterno pedestals) is now complete. I need to build, on the two sides of the patio, solid bases on which GRP planters will sit. Each base must be 540cm long, 40cm wide and 34-41cm tall (the patio is levelled but the garden had a slight slope). The planters will be 60cm tall. The purpose of the bases is not just to support the planters, but also to avoid any lateral movement of the suspended patio (the tiles sit on top of the pedestals, they are not glued down). This is the reason I kept approx 44cm buffers on the two sides, instead of arriving full width to the lateral fences. I have already started raising one side, reusing the concrete slabs I've removed from the garden (weird solution but this was a quick way to dispose them and avoid heavy lifting, as I am working on my own...), but I don't have enough slabs to get to that height, so I am now thinking how to move forward and ensure it is levelled. How would you do it? I would like to minimise the amount of heavy material to carry through the house and I don't want to use wood. The only thing I can think of is: get to the approx height with 300mm*440mm aerated concrete blocks and then lay on top 180cm*30cm concrete gravel boards. But this won't get me to the 40cm width I need. These bases will be 3cm below the level of the patio tiles and fully covered by the planters, so the appearance of the surface doesn't matter. Happy to post pictures of the patio, if that helps. Thanks everyone and apologies for the long post.

Has anyone tried compost from recyclers of local authority green waste? Because we have really heavy clay soil at the new place, my kitchen garden will be almost entirely no-dig raised beds (I'm trying the methods promoted by Charles Dowding). I will need to fill these with compost - far too much to be messing around with 40l bags of the stuff, so I'm planning a bulk delivery from the closest green waste recycling plant and I will get a quote on prices next week. I will be able to start making my own compost in due course as we're surrounding by dairy farms and horse stables, so there's no shortage of raw materials, just time in the first instance. Does anyone have any opinions on the quality of the compost if they have used it?