this post was submitted on 04 Apr 2025
20 points (100.0% liked)
Nature and Gardening
6840 readers
9 users here now
All things green, outdoors, and nature-y. Whether it's animals in their natural habitat, hiking trails and mountains, or planting a little garden for yourself (and everything in between), you can talk about it here.
See also our Environment community, which is focused on weather, climate, climate change, and stuff like that.
(It's not mandatory, but we also encourage providing a description of your image(s) for accessibility purposes! See here for a more detailed explanation and advice on how best to do this.)
This community's icon was made by Aaron Schneider, under the CC-BY-NC-SA 4.0 license.
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
I think I need to split my tomatoes today.
What's growing on with you all?
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
I <3 volunteer squash, and absolutely love that you're making use of them!
Definitely skim through some of the posts here, folks have shared a number of garden beds they've built. Regardless of the type of build you're going for, punky wood is a great way to reduce the amount of soil and compost you're buying in and will also act as a reservoir of water for drier times.
Some of our rain barrels came from a nearby bakery, and we spent far less buying a snap lock for holding window screen in place on top to keep them from being mosquito breeding grounds. Alternatively, reach out to any gardening clubs in your area - the next town over from us got a grant to subsidize rain barrels for their citizens and there might be a program like that near you
My county has(had?) some sort of rebate for both rain barrels and rain gardens, but neither has been updated in a year or so.
We went to a gardening class put on by the library and local Purdue extension office this week which was pretty fun. End of the month is one focused on fruit trees which we are looking forward to.
The beds themselves we were going to build out of some old deck boards that we still have laying around from some work a few years ago, possibly along with some old bike inner tubes to seal up gaps to keep soil from eroding out between boards. They are in decent enough shape for that. Hardest part for us is probably going to be figuring out a source for soil. We don't have a spot in our yard to dig out from.
Poking around on market place it looks like I can get some 55 gallon plastic barrels for like $10 each, then it's just some small modifications to make them rain barrels so that's easy enough. Might spend the money to put a pump on it, it might be nice to be able to run a sprinkler off it.
Out of an abundance of caution, please be sure of whether those decking boards are pressure treated. The newer formulations of copper fungicides are safer than the older methods of pressure treating but are still not exactly great for soil or human health when growing food. In that same vein, thoroughly wash the barrels before you start filling them and be sure to flush any and all plastic bits out after you're done setting up the outlets.
Your library sounds awesome! If they don't have one already, consider advocating for a seed library
As for soil/compost/growing medium - bagged stuff is not a worthwhile investment for your money from a cost-per-cubic-yard standpoint, and those products tend to have an inordinate amount of filler that won't help your plants. You're likely to spend less and have better results ordering a delivery from a landscaper supply business. They'll have you order by the cubic yard and dump it at an accessible location at your place. Spread a tarp out to give them something to aim for and to reduce what you lose during the filling of the beds.