Deck Clearance for the bearers

Hi All,
Just need a little advice. Here's the story, I drew up my plan for my deck and decided to use stirrups instead of timber posts as I have low clearance. Bearers will be bolted to stirrups. I have about 250mm clearance from the soil. I planned to use 90x90 TP for the bearers and 90 x 45 TP for joist. But when I went to order the timber, the guy suggested to use 140 x 45 for bearers as the 90x90 will bow a bit. So I did.
Now I don't have enought clearance so what I did was I dug a trench from one stirrup post hole to the next so I have enough clearance. Is this ok? What can I get to fill the trench so water doesn't build up underneath? Is gravel ok? Can I fill it up and cover half the stirrup? Or should I escavate the soil a bit more (don't really want to do this as it is too hard to escavate with a shovel and wheel barrow).
Don't want to have the joists the same level because the deck needs to go right to the fence and I can't get my post holes that close.

Thanks.


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