Photo by Anaia Song |
By Anaia Song These containers are 3 foot wide x 8 foot long and about 1.5+ foot deep and are a perfect size for container gardening.
They are made out of fiberglass and had a previous life as a mineral & salt crystal dispensing tank for cattle in the fields. Originally each had a bolted on plywood top with wood wheels and the cattle would lick the wheels for the minerals.
Many different sizes, shapes and construction material can be used for your containers but the basic procedures outlined here will work.
We removed the tops and drilled lots of 1/2" holes in the bottom about every foot or so.
After placing them at least 3 or more feet apart (more depending on what you plan to grow) we then built the hoops.
To build the hoops we began by pounding 2 foot long 3/8" rebar 'pegs' into the ground next to the sides and leaving about half the length sticking up. Place the pegs about 3 to 4 feet apart on each side of the bin. Use shorter pegs depending upon the depth of your soil or density of caliche under your containers. Using 1/2" PVC pipe push one end onto a peg then bend the PVC into a hoop and push the other end onto its oposite rebar peg. This hoop allows us to clip on shade cloth, remay, or plastic depending on the season. And we can change the height of the hoops by sliding the PVC up or down the pegs as needed (although this is not always easy).
Once we had the containers in place, we layered 4 inches straw, 1 inch manure, 1 inch topsoil,1 bucket bokashi kitchen compost and repeating until full. We do not till or turn the soil - we usually top the beds with compost and manure and maybe an organic fertilizer in the spring, and mulch with more straw.
We bought the containers at J.D.'s, although they no longer have any left - there was quite the rush on them in our gardening community after we created our garden. It's possible other feed stores, maybe in Deming, would have them. We paid $50 each for used ones. We even considered using one for fish raising!
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Malabar Spinach
About half the height it will get.
Photo by Anaia Song |
