Hi!
I've generally been planting my veggies in pots and in one small raised bed over the last year. But I'm now thinking of moving away from individual pots and into more raised beds as well as a large wooden trough/planter box.
The latter is for my tomatoes and I plan to place them on my patio since it's a sweet sun-loving spot. I plan to have 6 plants in it along with some helpful companions (eg. basil).
Now, would it be better for me to buy these troughs/boxes ready-made or to make them? If it was better to buy them, where can I get them from? Trade Me seems to have a couple but most of them aren't in my preferred sizes...
And if I did build these myself, where would I be able to find some instructions and blueprints? Or better still, does anyone know someone who is great with woodworking and would be keen to build some for a price?
Cheers plenty!!! :)
...spring is almost here...yay!!!
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Hello Tabitha. Good luck with your raised beds. Just a word of warning, Best for you to stay away from using tanalised timbers with your beds. The chemical preservatives used to treat timber include some fairly hazardous substances such as Arsenic. Over time these substances will leak into your soil and into your produce so will get passed onto whoever eats your produce. Roots crops are particularly adept at absorbing Arsenic. I've used Macrocarpa in my own beds as Macrocarpa, being quite a dense wood, can do a pretty good job of keeping boring insects and rot out without the use of preservative treatments.
Alternatively most packing crates are made from untreated Pine so can be a great free resource with which to build beds. Though if you do use untreated Pine don't expect your beds to last more than a few seasons as, unlike Macrocarpa, Pine is a fairly soft wood. Cheers ...
Wow, cheers for all that Neil!! The blog you suggested seemed really straight-forward and pictures definitely help! Have yet to look at the downloadable book but it seems promising. Did you use any of these information when you had yours built? They look pretty neat!
And I suppose if I'm wanting to turn these beds into troughs/planters (as it will go on my sunny patio and I don't want the soil to flow out), I'd just have to screw in a couple more planks for the base and drill some holes so the water can run out?
Hello - raised beds are great - I built 3 this Spring from recovered timber (old scaffolding planks) took about 5 hours all in with the wood cut to size before I started - you may want to contact the Community Recycling Network NZ to see if any of their members handle recovered timber - a couple of blogs that were posted here a while back may help with the building - How to build a raised bed - and a free downloadable book about building raised beds - and you could always have a raised bed building party to get some help building the beds! enjoy!
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Alternatively most packing crates are made from untreated Pine so can be a great free resource with which to build beds. Though if you do use untreated Pine don't expect your beds to last more than a few seasons as, unlike Macrocarpa, Pine is a fairly soft wood. Cheers ...
And I suppose if I'm wanting to turn these beds into troughs/planters (as it will go on my sunny patio and I don't want the soil to flow out), I'd just have to screw in a couple more planks for the base and drill some holes so the water can run out?
Thanks again!