These Recycled, raised garden boxes can save you money, backache, weeding and our environment. If you look you will be surprised what you can use for garden beds and how cheap you can make them for.
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We all have to do our part to help the environment we live in and our children grow in. Part of our legacy is to leave this world better than we found it. One of our favorite ways of doing that is recycling. So when we found these crates from parts that a steel mill was just going to throw out we asked and they gave them to us. And that’s how we came up with the idea for these recycled, raised bed, garden boxes. They did need a bit of TLC and a bit of oil to seal the wood (we used cheap canola oil and some paint brushes to apply it on) and landscape fabric stapled on the inside for more of a weed barrier. Now they are as good as new and work great for raised garden beds. They are a bit small so we lined them up in a row and they look great!
These recycled, raised garden boxes are easier to plant in and minimal weeding needs to be done with these.
Time to fill them up
We moved them to where we wanted them in the garden and filled them up.
We stapled landscaping cloth to the inside of these old part boxes from a steel mill.
Then filled it up with bark and sticks
The kids helped me with this. (Many hands make light work)
Then we added a layer of the manure that we got from cleaning out our goat barn this spring.
We then put some manure from two years ago that was very nice soil now
We choose to fill the lasagna style with a lot of different layers. First we filled it half way up with branches and bark from the wood pile. (My kids helped with this part) (The wood and bark will act as filler and hold moisture). Then we added a layer of the manure that we got from cleaning out our goat barn this spring. (The manure is better than any fertilizer that you can buy from any store. According to the Food, Conservation, and Energy Act of 2008 (commonly known as the 2008 Farm Bill) directed by the Department of Agriculture (USDA) Manure is used widely as a crop fertilizer and as a soil amendment. It contains Nutrients–such as nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium—that facilitate plant growth, and manure can improve soil quality by neutralizing acidity, increasing organic matter, decreasing compaction, and increasing water-holding capacity.)
Then we put in some manure from two years ago that was very nice soil now and very nutrient dense, and bonus it was filled with worms.
Then I got right to work Planting!
In the first one I planted some Brunswick Cabbage starts and some Kalibas cabbage starts.
Brunswick Cabbage
A large drumhead cabbage, very cold hardy. A fall/winter type cabbage, it stores very well. Introduced in 1924, it is an excellent market variety that is becoming rare
Kalibos Cabbage
Incredibly graceful appearance would qualify Kalibos for the flower garden, but this European variety is eminently useful as well! The conical, long, heart-shaped, 2-pound heads of deep red are on the small side, ideal for a single dish. The color is so beautiful when the leaves are shredded into slaw, and the flavor is mild and very sweet. They’re good keepers as well, allowing you to enjoy your fall harvest well into winter.
The second one isn’t planted just yet but as soon as it warms up here in Missouri I will do all kinds of gardening. (it has been so cold and rainy in Missouri)
What else do you think we should plant in them?
We have quit a few more boxes that we are in the process of cleaning up and turning them into these garden boxes.
Other things we have recycled as old planters
Old goat water troughs make really good planters for flowers and herbs. Once they get holes or cracks and cannot be used for holding water, we will drill out a few more on the bottom and fill them up with dirt and plant them.
These old feed half barrels. We get them from the feed store for $5 each and drill out a few holes in the bottom of them. You can paint them whatever color you want or need them to be.
Hope this helps and inspires you to recycle and reuse what is around you.
Best of luck Rebekah and Loura.
Supplies
- Canola oil (you will need almost a gallon for each box, because it does take a lot to do the inside and outside and every nook and cranny)
- Paint brushes
- landscape fabric
- Gloves
I will be posting a lot more updates on facebook and instagram
[…] We love the LaMancha breed because they are sweet and quieter, and give a lot of milk, And family has been breeding and raising LaMancha for four generations. We have raised other breeds but love the gentle nature and the milk supply that the lamanches give us. The LaMancha are the only american bred dairy goats. Goats make A2 milk so it’s much easier to digest.The goats give us meat and extra kids to sell, and milk that we turn into cheese and yogurt. (you can use it for butter, but it doesn’t have as much fat in it as cows do) Their manure goes to the compost pile every spring and turns into fertilizer that goes to the garden every year. You can read more about it here. […]