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Inexpensvie Durable Metal Garden Bed

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Post  OhioGardener 9/15/2022, 9:21 pm

Visited a friend today who wanted to show me his raised beds. An older gentleman who wanted to show me his raised beds. He's an older gentleman (not as old as me, but....) who wanted raised beds that don't require so much bending over. He built all new beds last year, and this is the second year gardening in them, and I was impressed with his creativity  in building inexpensive beds that should last for 10 or 20 years. He used cattle panels which he cut in half lengthwise so each panel was 25" by 16' long. He then bent the panels in a square so each side was 4' long. After tying the ends of the panel together he pressed the cut ends of the panel into the ground where the bed was to sit. Then he lined the beds with 20" high aluminum flashing (which comes a roll of 20" x 50'). With two cattle panels ($20 each) and a roll and a third roll of flashing ($35 each), he had four new raised beds.  I was even more surprised when he told me he filled the bottom of the bed with wood chips, then filled the top 8" with MM-type soil. The plants didn't seem to mind, though, since everything he was growing were really thriving.

It is worthwhile keeping this technique in mind if a new bed is needed. With even more creativity, different size beds could be made. For example a panel could be bent to make a 2'x6' bed instead of a 4'x4'. Or two panels could be bent and tied together to create 4'x12 bed.

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Post  Ginger Blue 9/16/2022, 7:19 am

This is great! Thanks for sharing, OG. My husband and I have been tossing around ideas for raised beds; this may be just what we need!
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Post  sanderson 9/17/2022, 6:23 pm

Creative gentleman. Inexpensvie Durable Metal Garden Bed 3170584802

Administrator's note: The only thing is that by filling the bottom with wood chips, the Mel's Mix will drop over time. The SFG Foundation recommended inert filling like sand or top soil. Note for anyone wanting a taller bed like this gentle did.

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Post  Soose 9/20/2022, 9:55 am

Visited a friend today He used cattle panels which he cut in half lengthwise so each panel was 25" by 16' long. He then bent the panels in a square so each side was 4' long. Then he lined the beds with 20" high aluminum flashing (which comes a roll of 20" x 50').
@OhioGardener ... Coincidentally, this last week, as we look at expanding our garden,  I have been planning on doing this very construction method. Rural King put a less expensive galvanized fire ring [36"x12" high] on sale (ship to store only, 2wk wait) for $36.  Fire rings are pricey.  Ten would be $360.

But I skipped the sale, because I had a thought to buy welded wire to get a comparable round bed, probably for squashes and melons. Large cost savings doing it that way compared to fire rings or especially the expensive stock tanks a friend buys. (She needs a bottom to her raised beds, in the desert.)

Ten of what I was looking at (made out of 2x4" mesh, 12.5g, 50ft roll welded wire) would be $90, and 20or 24" high instead of only 12" high fire rings. 

Will 12.5g welded wire do a good enough job?  Thought I could disassemble and use welded wire for a lot of things in future.  

I hadn't really focused on cattle panels yet, thought of them in passing for extra durability.    ( Just fyi,  Cattle panels have gone up here in the last 2 months from $25 range to $29.  If you can get them in stock. )

Ok, I costed them out and I don't think cattle panels are much more expensive than using welded wire.  About the same. 

-- One roll welded wire 2"x4"mesh 12.5g 4ftx50ft $90 yields ten 38"diam beds, 20 to 24" high.
-- Three cattle panels 4g 50"x16ft =~~ 4ft x 48ft  $90 also yields ten 36" diam beds, 20 to 24" high.
...........[in reality, eight 2x4ft rectangular or six 4x4ft square]


[We'd be more likely to make them a dimension that would fit the cattle panels, not a bad thing.  Longer beds also might fit some drip watering better. These won't be self-wicking.]

SO.   Moving on, I was going to line the beds with cardboard. I didn't think of using the flashing.  What do y'all think of the cardboard method? 

(I know it'll deteriorate but with only 2x4" wire spacing, I was thinking maybe the mix wouldn't fall back out after the cardboard deteriorates. I have a friend who used to make compost piles out of the welded wire, lined with cardboard, and it just sorta condensed and matted up at the edges -- but she did plant potatoes in the top the first year.)

Not sure about using galvanized vs aluminum.  Availability of any metal products has to be considered nowadays.  Home Depot here has both, YMMV:
 
Home Depot -- 20in x 50ft rolls galvanized  $70.26 in stock (though low).   You'd need 2 rolls = $140.
                 -- 20in x 50ft roll aluminum  $82.80 [ in store] and $75 [ delivery].  $166 to $150.

Not that much diff in cost, for infrastructure,  just mentioning it.  Someone else may come along and want numbers while I was looking at it.

Final cost for ten 36" diam beds:  $90 for the cattle panels with cardboard lining.
........................................+ $ 140min for lining. 
........................................ =  $230 lined.

p.s. Haven't decided to trellis the squashes or let them run a la OhioGardener's squash BTE garden.
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Post  OhioGardener 9/20/2022, 2:27 pm

Soose wrote:Coincidentally, this last week, as we look at expanding our garden,  I have been planning on doing this very construction method. Rural King put a less expensive galvanized fire ring [36"x12" high] on sale (ship to store only, 2wk wait) for $36.  Fire rings are pricey.  Ten would be $360.
.
.
.
[We'd be more likely to make them a dimension that would fit the cattle panels, not a bad thing.  Longer beds also might fit some drip watering better. These won't be self-wicking.]

A couple thoughts: 12g welded wired will not survive long - it will bulge out from the pressure of the soil. Cardboard lining of the bed will not last - within a year it will deteriorate to the point there will be no lining.

I just checked both local Tractor Supply and Rural King stores, and both are charging almost $29 for cattle panels. Glad I stocked up a couple years ago when they were $18.

But, interestingly I did a search on youtube and found a video that is a couple years old on this very topic.  This might be helpful in making a decision.

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Post  sanderson 9/20/2022, 5:32 pm

Clever idea.  

If it was made according to the video, and I did my math correctly, it would be 5' in diameter.  To be 4' in diameter, 12.68' of length would need to be used.

If 4 metal stakes were used at the corners to reinforce vertically, a nice 4'x4' bed would result.

This video needs its own thread so it doesn't get buried. Got to think of a good title for bed ideas.

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Post  Soose 9/20/2022, 6:07 pm

"Raised bed construction [ideas. Methods. Designs.]"

P.s. I did post a reply earlier that did not post. Happens about half the time with my phone and this forum.
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Post  Soose 9/20/2022, 6:11 pm

sanderson wrote:Clever idea.  

If it was made according to the video, and I did my math correctly, it would be 5' in diameter.  To be 4' in diameter, 12.68' of length would need to be used.

I was thinking a round bed for squashes and melons, just because I was thinking of "hills" and planting a circular pattern of seeds. Guess I saw that somewhere.

Another way to use this method would be a long rectangular raised bed.
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Post  Soose 9/20/2022, 6:17 pm

[Ok, I think I figured out about the missing posts. There are two post buttons, or a post them a send. Apologies it's this comes twice.]

Check out this version of the cattle panel raised bed, using a 5 inch thick outer liner or wall of wood chips.

https://youtu.be/AVaFsORKhl8
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Post  OhioGardener 9/20/2022, 6:50 pm

sanderson wrote:If it was made according to the video, and I did my math correctly, it would be 5' in diameter.  To be 4' in diameter, 12.68' of length would need to be used.

Yes, you did your math correctly:  D = C/3.1416 = 16/3.1416 = 5.09'

If 4 metal stakes were used at the corners to reinforce vertically, a nice 4'x4' bed would result.

This is what I liked about this concept - it can be configured in a lot of different ways to suit a person's need.  As you suggested, the 16' x 25" panel could be bent every 4' to create a 4' square bed.  Or the two 16' x 25" panels could each be bent with one 4' section and a 12' section. Those two pieces could then be joined to form a 4' x 12' bed. Or, one 16' x 25" panel could be bent at 2' then 6' then 2' again to create a bed 2' x 6'. And, with creativity, there are probably other configurations as well.

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Post  OhioGardener 9/20/2022, 7:12 pm

Soose wrote:Check out this version of the cattle panel raised bed, using a 5 inch thick outer liner or wall of wood chips.

https://youtu.be/AVaFsORKhl8

I would be hesitant to use that method. Those wood chips are going to break down, and they are going to steal nitrogen from your MM while they are doing it.  And, as they are breaking down, you will have to add more and more MM to compensate for decomposed wood chips.

Every year I get two very large loads of free wood chips delivered to my outback, and I use the front-end loader to pile them as high as possible in a mound to compost.  One year later that pile of wood chips has broken down into the best mulch one could ever ask for, and it is used freely to mulch various flower and vegetable beds.  Then two more very large loads of chips arrive, and the process starts over. It only takes one year for that pile to change from wood chips to mulch, and the more green leaves in the chips the faster they break down (because of the extra nitrogen).

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Post  Soose 9/20/2022, 10:02 pm

OhioGardener wrote:
Soose wrote:https://youtu.be/AVaFsORKhl8

I would be hesitant to use that method. Those wood chips are going to break down, and they are going to steal nitrogen from your MM while they are doing it. 

Every year I get two very large loads of free wood chips delivered to my outback, and I use the front-end loader to pile them as high as possible in a mound to compost.  One year later that pile of wood chips has broken down into the best mulch one could ever ask for... 
Understood.  On my list is to take the truck to the nursery for at least a couple  of $30 cu yds of soil conditioner aka fine mulch for next year.  (How many cu yds in the free truck?  5 or 6? )

I've watched a few more in that woodchip bed series. Interesting watch, more to it. I  think the woodchips are not only air pruning but part of the fungi network, because I seem to remember the fungi grow in the wood mulch?   Seems his point is to build a garden soil mycrro-whatever network between symbiotic plants, that will communicate between plants via the fungi network and create a permaculture or soil?  

He uses clover for a cover crop (something I need to learn more about), strawberries as a perennial with roots to work with the fungi, sunflowers to bring up either nutrients or water from down deep, then he plants tomatoes and peppers after those are going well. Nothing seems lacking nitrogen so there's more to his madness. Too advanced for me. 

Back to the method, woodchips would be an alternative to cardboard if one couldn't afford the metal liners.  He does use hardware cloth to contain the woodchips, and that's pricey for me now. Don't know if there would be a savings.   

Cardboard is free and while short-lived, it would get someone started on a short budget.  

Now that I have taken the time to think, I have seen stakes of T posts or rebar used to reinforce corners and sometimes the sides  of these wire beds when lined with cardboard, or even with plastic. That might keep the chicken wire or welded wire from bulging.  

Plant Abundance channel has versions made wrapping cardboard boxes in chicken wire and lining with big black contractor bags, even a self-wicking version of that. 

Just depends on what a person has on hand, and what they can afford.  Not everyone can start out with permanent beds.  I can see flexibility and advantage in learning the first year, with less permanent beds.
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Post  OhioGardener 9/21/2022, 9:07 am

Soose wrote:Just depends on what a person has on hand, and what they can afford.  Not everyone can start out with permanent beds.  I can see flexibility and advantage in learning the first year, with less permanent beds.

So true!  Unfortunately, as I learned the hard way, re-doing a raised bed that was incorrectly built is more work than it would have been to build it right the first time. I had to shovel all of the soil out of the bed, keeping the top MM separate from the bottom filler top soil, re-build and re-install the bed, shovel all the top soil back in, then shovel all the MM back in. Not pretty. Never made that mistake again, though.  As Albert Einstein said, "Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new."


Come to think of it, I need to plan a new 2'x6' raised bed for a new project I'm working on....

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Post  Soose 9/21/2022, 9:24 am

I was thinking of temporary beds helping prevent getting issues wrong the first year, for instance, sun/shade placement or other logistics...

We are probably going to move the pole beans. The trellises work well and I remember someone here helped me with figuring out that my double rows of raised beds were far enough apart that the trellises for one would not shadow the beds on the northern side, etc, so we're good everywhere with sun. But it's just hard to access the green beans. I keep thinking we would do better with a separate long narrow bed.
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Post  sanderson 9/21/2022, 11:31 pm

Durable weed fabric can be used on the inside of a cage.  It would only work in rainier locations. Air pruning is not part of SFG. Neither are Wood chips as a liner or anywhere in the Mel's Mix.  This is an early attempt at making a cage in 2016 for composting.   Inexpensvie Durable Metal Garden Bed Compos64

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Post  Soose 9/22/2022, 8:00 am

Explain, please?  About durable weed fabric only working on rainier locations.
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Post  sanderson 9/22/2022, 1:20 pm

Surface evaporation on the sides.  I live in a semi-desert climate where the temps are over 100*F for weeks at a time and the humidity is around 20%.  I couldn't keep the Mel's Mix wet/moist even though I hosed the sides.

Air pruning vegetables doesn't make sense and is a waste of water, and costly where there is water rationing or metered charges by usage.  With solid-sided beds, there is no side evaporation, only at the top, which can be controlled with mulch.

This is an early attempt of mine to grown potatoes using a wire frame lined with durable weed fabric.  It was fine in March during the rains but was impossible to keep moist when the rain stopped and the temperatures climbed.  I got this idea from someone else.  It's similar to growing in fabric pots.  Doesn't work in every environment.

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Post  Soose 9/22/2022, 1:33 pm

Understood.  Not sure if it would work here, as hot as the Summer was for some weeks.
Or for all veg -- the pole beans were extremely Thursday even in a self-wicking bed.  Makes me cautious about trying it wholesale as a first step for a new set of beds.  Might be good to experiment with, though, on a small scale, to try his permaculture technique.

The only time I've heard of air pruning is with the soil blocks for starting seeds.  The pictures of roots in other types of starter containers...  we're probably all familiar with how roots can get wrapped around the plant once they hit the sides of the containers, and strangle the plant.
Then versus the soil blocks where the roots hit the edge of the soil block and then travel naturally downward.  There's said to be no transplant shock with soil blocks.  I have one 2inch sq x 4 unit soil block and want to try to get a little one.  I am a dunce at seed starting and need every advantage, plus a system and routine that works too keep me in track.  ( I would send to forget to water or not transplant or plant out soon enough, etc. )
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Post  OhioGardener 9/22/2022, 5:13 pm

Soose wrote:Might be good to experiment with, though, on a small scale, to try his permaculture technique.

Permaculture gardens use techniques and practices that combine the best of wildlife gardening, edible landscaping, and native-plant cultivation into one low-maintenance, self-contained and productive ecosystem.

Not descriptive of Square Foot Gardening.

The only time I've heard of air pruning is with the soil blocks for starting seeds.  The pictures of roots in other types of starter containers...  we're probably all familiar with how roots can get wrapped around the plant once they hit the sides of the containers, and strangle the plant.
Then versus the soil blocks where the roots hit the edge of the soil block and then travel naturally downward.  There's said to be no transplant shock with soil blocks.

The concept of Air Pruning might be a little deceptive. For example, I start seedlings in Cow Pots, which are made of compressed composted cow manure, and the roots grow through the pot both on the sides and the bottom. Never have the roots "air pruned" as they grew through the pot. And, because the roots are so healthy growing into the composted cow manure, they have virtually no transplant shock when put into the garden.

I have also found the tapered cell trays cause the roots to grow down instead of attempting to wrap around the pot as they do with a round pot. 12 of these fit in a standard 1020 tray, which gives 72 cells to start seeds. I bought a bunch of these years ago, and they are still going strong.

https://www.bootstrapfarmer.com/collections/plug-trays/products/seed-trays-inserts-6-cell

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Post  Soose 9/22/2022, 6:20 pm

Ohiogardener, thanks for the insight into Permaculture.  I had not really looked at it until recent years.   I find it intriguing, but a mystery.  I think it's not for a confused beginner like myself. I need structure and being told when to do what.  It's a lot to juggle.



I had forgotten about the tapered pots causing roots to grow downward, I actually saw that in a video just this Summer and meant to follow up looking at that.  Thanks for the reminder and link.
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Post  Soose 10/22/2022, 2:23 pm

An extra $5 off.   Rural King has the cheaper 12" tall x 36" diameter galvanized fire rings  on sale for even less in their current "Black Friday NOW" sales ad.   https://www.ruralking.com/weeklyad  

If you don't mind a 12" tall raised bed, round, might fit someone's garden space...  

(The previous sale when I posted -- in September? --  was $35.99, today it's $31.99 -- free ship to store, and I am just guessing it's going to be 10days to 2wks delivery as it was before? Though what delivery times are like in reality, who knows.)

[I'm still attracted to round beds/ hills for squashes.  A 36" diameter ring has a bit over 7 sq ft of planting space.   Would you follow the 1 square per plant? And trellis them, surely?]

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[ Edit: 
For the 36" diameter ring, 7sq ft planting area, $32/7=$4.57/sq ft planting area
In contrast...
Making a rectangular 4x12 bed with one cattle panel @$29 and lining with Home Depot 20"x50ft rolled metal @$80/roll, as in the post above...
The breakeven is buying enough materials for three beds...  $82.33/48sq ft  = $1.71/sq ft  planting area
End Edit.]
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Inexpensvie Durable Metal Garden Bed Empty Re: Inexpensvie Durable Metal Garden Bed

Post  OhioGardener 10/23/2022, 8:14 am

Soose wrote:For the 36" diameter ring, 7sq ft planting area, $32/7=$4.57/sq ft planting area
In contrast...
Making a rectangular 4x12 bed with one cattle panel @$29 and lining with Home Depot 20"x50ft rolled metal @$80/roll, as in the post above...
The breakeven is buying enough materials for three beds...  $82.33/48sq ft  = $1.71/sq ft  planting area
End Edit.]

As a side note, if a cattle panel is cut in half lengthwise so that there are to panels 16' long by 25" wide, it could be used to create two 4' diameter round raised beds.  If the cattle panel is curled into a circle with a circumference of 12.5', it would give a 4' diameter circle.  That would give two 4' raised beds which are 25" high.

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Inexpensvie Durable Metal Garden Bed Empty Re: Inexpensvie Durable Metal Garden Bed

Post  Soose 10/24/2022, 6:23 am

I should have specified if I didn't that the cattle panels in my pricing data are cut lengthwise to make two 25" pieces. Stuck into the ground a few inches, the beds are approximately 20 inch high to match the rolled metal liner.
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