Cinderblock Raised Beds

[lupinfarm]

I found an article in my Hobby Farms magazine where the person was making a 4 sq. ft. raised bed out of cinderblock and that got me thinking...

We have an old rabbit barn on our property made entirely out of cinderblock. It must have fallen down years ago and all that is left is the cinder foundation. The mortar is so degraded that you can just push on the walls and they fall over.

So obviously here I am thinking HOLY MOLY I can use allll this wonderful cinderblock (the barn was fairly large) and build a bunch of raised beds with it.

Anyone else have cinderblock raised beds?

 

[Dace]

I don't but that is an excellent idea....especially when you have cinder block laying around!

 

[big brown horse]

Ohhh!! I want them!!!

If you build the raised beds with them, turn them up so you can also plant stuff (like herbs) in the holes of the cinderblocks.

 

[lupinfarm]

Thats what I was thinking BBH! ... They didn't plant anything in the blocks in the article but the bed looked fantastic. They only used one course of blocks in theirs and it turned out great, I can add more later if needed so I may just start with the one course.

How strange to be on here after so long LOL I think I've confined myself an awful lot to BYH.

 

[big brown horse]

I'm glad you stopped in!

 

[sylvie]

I had a load of broken concrete block that I used as fill for building my flagstone terrace. Wish I had seen this before I committed the block to the terrace. I had other materials that I could have used.

Did the article discuss whether the block keeps the plants from drying out more quickly? Is it better than boards in that respect?

 

[lupinfarm]

I'm not sure, I'll dig it up later! (ha ha ha...oh that was a bad joke) and check it out. It was kind of based around square foot gardening. I imagine it'd be a good option for people who live in dry climates as it would help keep some of the water in. We live in a somewhat wet climate but we're well-drained so wet roots won't be too much of a concern here.

 

[Wildsky]

I was thinking about this the other day, and thinking the holes could be used to hold a removable frame, to either keep out the cold or the chickens.
If you need to keep chickens out or to keep the plants safe from a frost or two... you could use skinny plastic piping and make it into a hoop kinda thing, and push into the holes of the cinder blocks to keep it in shape, then cover it.

I would need to keep mine covered with chicken wire to keep out the chickens and other feathered friends, but the frame would be handy to throw over some plastic if we're in for a freeze.

 

[lupinfarm]

lol the worst I seem to have to worry about is my darn barn cats. They really enjoy digging up and pooping in my gardens -_-

We're fencing off our garden this year, and we're fenced on all 4 sides from deer (who are too busy eating their way through our neighbours corn field to be bothered with us lol).

My chickens stick to the front yard and valley on the otherside of the property for some reason.

I am deffo doing the hoops, I have hoops on my long spring bed that I'm using for early plantings this year. I had my tomatoes out in APRIL despite all the frosts (and some snow!) and they were HUGE. I'm talkin 4ft-5ft tall and we ended up with like 150lbs of tomatoes O__O we couldn't eat them fast enough and I had to sell some and give the rest to the hens.

 

[lupinfarm]

I've found this information re: cinder block raised beds. Supposedly you can fill your gaps in the blocks with sand, gravel, or rock to create a solar heat entrapment and keep the soil warmer longer (and possibly even earlier?).

http://www.raised-bed-gardening.org/2009/04/building-cinder-block-raised-garden-bed.html

I can tell ya guys now, living in Rocky Rawdon I have enough rock for a million raised beds LOL.

And here are some double decker cinder block beds. I can't decide whether I should make double height or single height or a combination of both for my beds.

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3187/3063855092_68ee8aa5fa.jpg

The building I have at my disposal is rather large, probably 30ftx50ft (or a bit smaller). It is built into a hill but theres still a lot of cinderblock I can use even on the 2 sides.