This Is How We Container Garden On Our Homestead!
In our post last night we showed you some of what we were using for our containers for gardening this year. I wanted to show you what I did and maybe it would help you if you are going to try this.
I just put a piece of landscaping fabric in the bottom of the tub. It is 2 feet wide and about 8 feet long. Oh, instead of buying a big roll at somewhere like Lowes that is $25.00 check out the Dollar Tree they had a 4x8 sheet for a dollar. Because you all know you buy that big roll and say "I will use it for something." It gets put up and lost or destroyed. I know I have been there and done that and got the t-shirt. LOL. I just put a couple of cheap bags of topsoil on the bottom as a filler and then mixed up a bag of potting soil and manure and put it in there. I will come back later when ready to plant in there and add some more soil. It will take 4 or 5 bags to get it where it needs to be.
This is where I let it for today and I will have to get some more soil to put in it. I wanted to give you another idea on a container to use that I think will help you. I did not want to spend $3.00 on buckets as Craigslist had none on it and the bakeries are letting employees have first go at the buckets they are throwing out. We found another solution to that problem. Here it is and you will never guess where we got these at.
Yes, Dollar Tree is where we got these at. We have had some in the weather for three years with the grandkids toys in them outside and they are still really great. They have not fallen apart or broke into little pieces. It is great for a dollar, these 8 took two bags of soil to fill and I added about a half a bag of manure to the mix then filled these up. I think they will work great for cherry tomatoes and some of our peppers. We have been working on tilling the garden some more today trying to get all the roots and stuff out. It has been a great day and it has been a blast getting our hands dirty. We will have some other ideas for you later so be on the lookout for our posts. I hope you have a great day/night, whatever it is in your neck of the woods.Thanks from @basicstoliving for taking the time to read our post.
Do you worry about the plastic leaching into you food?
Not really as barrels and buckets are used all the time. The plastic the tubs are made out of should be no worries as they are made from the same thing. It should be all good.
OK...just wondering! Good luck on your plants this year!
Thanks! I am just trying to be frugal, well, cheap I guess. LOL. It was a tight budget and I had to cut corners somewhere because I wanted to able to have a nice garden this year. If it works out that is great if not I will try something else. You know many things we try are trial and error as we learn.
Trial and error is a yearly thing!
We are going to put a layer of gravel down in our bathtub first, then topsoil, then potting soil and such. I didn't think of using landscaping fabric. I may do that first, then the gravel, and so on. Thanks for the continued inspiration!
I used the topsoil so as it breaks down I can use it in the garden as it needs some help and it will take some time. Kinda like a compost pile and a container garden. The fabric will help keep whatever you put in it from coming out with the water when it drains from the rain or watering.
I used old rain gutters and had some fantastic strawberry beds till the raccoons found them.
I was looking for some old rain gutters for that purpose. I make a frame for them to hang on off the ground it is easier for me to deal with them and keeps things out of them sometimes.
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