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this post was submitted on 11 May 2024
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First step is to lay it out and cut the sod.
Once the sod is removed I dug out a shovels depth to till the soil and to mix in some gravel along with it, this is just to get rid of some other material and to help level support the bottom of the beds a little better.
Once the bed is in place I put more gravel around the perimeter and then some compost/loam mix in the middle.
After that I put the removed dirt from digging out and it will get topped with more compost/loam mix to finish it off.
Cheers growmies!
Plastic beds? Steel beds? If steel, where did you get them? I made very cheap DIY beds using that wavy PVC roofing, but weed whacking the grass around them has put a few holes in them...
I'm going to be doing as you did around my beds this season and then put some mulch down to avoid this issue in the future.
Steel, I got them off of Amazon for about $160 CAD for a two pack. Doing each out of wood would have cost more. Can’t speak of longevity yet, it seems to be on the thinner gauge, but holding up well so far. Plant and plot brand.
I’m planning on some mulch or rock myself. Wife is think rock, so likely going rock haha.
Thanks! Nice work. PCV roofing is super floppy, but they're holding up fairly well. This will be our fourth season.
Rock has the perk of not slowly decomposing, but if you ever change your mind it's a massive PITA to get rid of. We have a few beds of crushed marble that I would prefer to convert to mulch, but we would have to pay someone to take the marble. We don't have a great place to just stash it.
https://www.homedepot.com/p/SHAPE-PRODUCTS-37-in-x-12-in-x-24-in-Steel-Straight-Area-Window-Well-3724AWE-S/325327589
I’ve seen some made out of two of these bolted together. I love the ingenuity some people come up with.
These are what I used, cut in half length wise on my table saw: https://www.menards.com/main/building-materials/roofing/specialty-roofing/pvclite-26-x-8-pvc-corrugated-roof-panel/1594243/p-1444424088714-c-5819.htm?exp=false they're only UV resistant on one side, so I painted the other.
I ran some PVC through them at 1/3 and 2/3 to prevent them from blowing too much, put a slice of Trex on the outside at the PVC ends, and pinned them with a much smaller diameter section of PVC.
All in, each 4x8 bed was probably around $45 to build. I'll probably replace them at some point with something nicer, like your metal beds. Some of the beds are bowing out some and I have a few of those weed whacker chips to deal with.
In progress pic below. The rebar is for tomato support on one side (Florida weave) and bean/pea on the other.
Love the green.
Is that epoxy coated metal rebar? How’s it hold up? Or are they just plastic?
Still need to figure out my tomatoe supports, I’ve got cages but they failed last year. The beds are 2 feet wide I’m hoping I can put 2 tomato plants along the fence in a couple beds, also planning on doing peas in pots between the beds too. Lots of plans, we will see what actually comes to fruition.
It's the raw steel rebar you can buy at big box stores, just with a quick layer of paint. Epoxy coated sounds like a much better idea, but I have no idea where I would find that. They're holding up really well, with just some spotty surface rust where I didn't get great paint coverage initially. Rebar is very flexible at these lengths, so I tied the tops together and also tied the two rows together to prevent everything from flipping around so much.
And yeah, I often get overly ambitious with the quantity of things I grow, but going up helps in that regard. In addition to this bed, we have a large (8 foot tall, five foot wide) arch between two other beds that cukes, mellons, etc climb.
We had some volunteer pumpkins grow out of our compost pile and up the deer fence last year, so I'm going to intentionally use the fence for more growing area this season.
You can get it At HD here, I checked the US store, but they don’t appear to have it? They have some nature coated I’ve never heard of and fiberglass, that may be a better option.