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Happy January all…I’m dreaming of my garden to get me through this negative temp snap we have!
Previously, I had a garden with 20 4×8′ raised boxes (1′ tall) with a pollinator/herb garden in the middle. I have moved on, but learned some lessons. The wood is always a maintenance challenge.
I like the idea of using corrugated metal (like the roofing) for boxes, but my sweetie is concerned that they have coatings which may be toxic and leach into our boxes. Does anyone have any input on this, either way? I kind of like the metal and wood look (and think the metal would provide great heat), but I don’t want frankencarrots either!
Thanks for any and all input!
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Hi Jodie – Let me tell you what my overachiever hubby built for me for my garden. First step – pallet wood – it’s free, just the labor to tear it apart. So he builds my boxes 28″ high as my back is total crap, then we take Thompson’s Water Seal and give it a couple of good coats to protect the wood. And to keep our darned bindweed from growing up into the beds from below (like Australia for the roots I think!), we took ground cover/weed barrier and made a “bag” from it – fastened at the top, going down the side, across the bottom, and back up the other side. It drains well and keeps my earthworms in there too. Then because we are at 8500+ ft altitude in Colorado, he wanted to insulate the boxes to give them a longer usefulness. Problem is that most insulating materials are toxic. So we settled on the 1″ hard foam, going over the weed barrier. Next level, we took flat metal sheets (like for metal buildings) to completely cover the hard foam so the soil never touches the foam. Basically what he built was an open topped ice chest with great drainage! We had several HARD freezes and my goofy plants were still green and healthy! Hope you find just what you’re looking for in the way of ideas, but I will say that this design moderates the soil temps wonderfully and makes it easy on my horrible back!
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Sounds like a great setup! I started with free pallet wood years ago, but I didn’t treat because I was new and didn’t know what was in the treatment! The naked pallet wood actually lasted 2 years! Now I’m just wondering if the galvanized materials have anything that may leach out and into my boxes. We have some “found” materials like galvanized as well as some abandoned metal siding sheeting that we are considering cutting to size and using. 28″ high boxes would be such a dream for my back! I have DJD and just can’t ground garden like I once did. I have one of those little garden wheelie jobbies and just scoot along sideways and it works great. But 28″ wowza, that would be so nice! I’m planning 1′ high for now, because we are needing to get filler material, etc (already have some wood stored up for the task). Happy gardening, my friend!
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Jodie, I hope you get your dream raised bed – the extra height is a real game changer for my scoliosis that literally hates my body. But to change to the topic of things leeching into our garden beds – I’ll tell you the sage advice my hubby gave me when I was “fretting” over every little anything that was part of the beds… “Uh – look up dear. You think all those toxins in the chemtrails aren’t doing more harm to our ground, plants, trees, and the air we breathe than whatever little bit of something that we introduce from materials!?” He’s right of course, we breathe in somewhere in the range of 20 million nano particles of toxins PER BREATH all day every day from what they spray! Don’t believe it? They even admit what they’re spraying now – they used to deny it. So, while that is terrifying and discouraging on many levels, let it encourage you that short of actually pouring toxins on your plants, you can’t really compete with what we’re getting that is totally out of our control now. Sorry to be a “Debbie Downer”, just wanted to help you get a little more comfortable with whatever you want to grow in (short of old tires maybe LOL!). Oh, and if you’re concerned about the amount of soil needed for a taller bed – you can fill the bottom of the bed with lots of things other than “premium soil”. Many use logs, twigs, stuff you rake up from your yard, etc – just to fill about half of it.
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Hi Marianne-Â This is my first post as I’m a new student.
Do you have any ideas on how to minimize the fallout of the chemtrails on your herbs and other plants? Should we be growing in greenhouses? I’m concerned about this too and the only thing I’ve thought I could do is just keep detoxing the liver.
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Hi Scarlett, This was a discussion my husband and I had when we first bought our property. We planned to farm outdoors, but with all the chemtrails, we decided to do greenhouses. In the mean time we are also nagging our representatives 🙂
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Sharise
You Leave the Legacy you Live
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hello, Just a I have just started to want to do raised beds just because of keeping some herbs contained and last year bought a water tough (metal). I believe it’s galvanized. My thinking is, it is safe for animals…. I cut it in half and made 2 beds, although they are shorter which will not help a back. If you do use pallets. Just make sure they have ht written on there somewhere. It means it heat treated and not chemical. Also palletes that are blue are food grade. Also Dr. Jones has you tube video on how to make wood raised beds. and making them pretty much water resistant by burning the wood. Which works. I make my green house out of reclaimed pallet wood and old window frames and it was a mess. I was covered with soot every day I worked on it.
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I have old troughs and raised beds made out old roofing metal. The troughs get very warm and dry out fast, the metal roofing beds are a bit better but still dry out fairly fast as I don’t have a drip irrigation system in place. I am going to make shorter raised beds with the concrete corners from Lowes and 2×8’s and see if that will make a difference, looking at a bit of expansion in the garden and cutting down on work if possible.
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