Cheap Garden Beds – Using Recycled Building Supplies
After four years of heavy use, my raised garden beds are starting to fall apart and need replacing. Before I gave in to spending money on supplies, I wanted to make sure there wasn’t anything lying around the farm that I could use instead of buying new. Learning how to build a cheap raised garden bed, while sticking to our budget, was a fun challenge.
The first thing I did was take a walk around the farm to see what I could find to use. I found cinder blocks, a stack of pallets, a pile of bricks, a pile of downed trees and piles and piles of trimmed branches.
With those items on my list, I went searching online for some ideas on how to build a cheap raised garden bed. I was so excited that I found a plan for each item on my list.
Brick Raised Garden by Vegetable Gardener
Pallet beds by Garden Reboot
Down Trees by Small Farm
Wattle Fencing by Apartment Therapy
Cinder Block Garden Bed by Miscellaneous Topics and Ideas by Dee
There are so many things we can repurpose to use for a raised garden bed. Now I just have to decide which old material to use and the greatest thing is I won’t have to spend a dime.
We even took our recycling to a new level by using discarded pallets to make this beautiful garden fence. If you want to see how we built this picket fence for under $200 click here.
Thanks for these great ideas! I’ll be constructing raised garden beds next weekend, and have been searching for some methods.
I was surprised I found so many ideas when I really started to look! Good luck building!
I just wanted to share with you that you need to be careful using pallets and tires as planters for edibles, as they can contain harmful ingredients.
Daisy thank you for sharing this great tip…I would have never thought about that with the pallets.
Tracy, we live in pine tree country and constantly have neighbors and tree farms having pine tree harvests. The logging companies leave behind many smaller trees that were uprooted, but not big enough to take. Some would consider that a waste, but in this area we use all those downed trees for one thing or another and currently my raised garden beds are formed of those handy logs. We’ve also used them in little construction projects and other DIY’s and plenty of people use them for campfires/winter heating. I’m also a fan of cinder block raised bed which are working especially well for my strawberry bushes. I’ve also seen people turn old canoes into little garden beds!
We have a friend who is a trucker for a hard wood lumber mill. He is able to get loads and loads of what I call 3rds. Long (and short) planks of hard wood that for one reason or another can not be sold. Normally they throw it away but he gets the load for us and we use it everywhere. I did one 20×20(ish) raised bed garden with the planks. They have also been used to make a chick brooder, a chicken coop, and a rabbit house. When the mill cuts their sellable planks to the proper length they toss the end (that happens to be about 2 ft) we cut that in half and use it to heat in the wintertime.
Vikki what a wonderful find! We are currently using wood pallets for many of our projects around the farm. They are a pain to take apart but the free wood is such a blessing for us!
These are wonderful ideas! Do you have any suggestions on filling them inexpensively?
Starting your plants from seed is my best advice. The cost of a bag of soil and a packet of seeds are so much cheaper than buying plants already grown. You can use so many thing around your house as seed started containers. Milk jugs, paper rolls, egg cartons and the list goes on and on.
Yes, I do agree with starting seeds indoors. I have mine under a grow lamp as I speak. 🙂
I love the idea of tire garden! It looks eco-friendly somehow! It’s also quite perfect for small garden in my house!
That picket fence really is adorable! I just love it! We don’t have old pallets sitting around, but y’all did a great job reusing them.
I think I’m going with dog ears for our big walkway project (since it’s only for flowers!)