Garden planting in small areas.

This week's blog returns to farming.  If you only have a small area to garden in or if you need a raised bed for your plants, what can you easily do?  We have successfully used the following idea for onions and pepper plants.  I'm sure it would be beautiful with flowers too!

We can't be the only farm that ends up with water tanks that have sprung a leak.  Sometimes you can repair those pesky tanks and sometimes it's just time to throw in the towel and admit that their use as a water container is finished.  LOL  However, that doesn't mean that their useful life is over!!  Far from it! 

We drill holes in the bottom of the tank, so that the plants don't get water logged.  To make it more of a raised bed, we put rocks and stones in the bottom of the tank to help fill it in and make the dirt level be up higher.  This also helps with water management (obviously).  Then put in your garden soil and plants.  It can be moved wherever you want it and it takes up a very little space.  Weeds aren't an issue and it keeps rabbits out too!  I do place some weed control paper underneath the tank, along with some decorative gravel, so I don't have to mow or weed eat around that area.  If you would like to paint the outside of the tank first, you could certainly do that too.  Add a bit of your own style and flair to your garden containers!  We just leave it as black (the original color) and it does fine.

Old water tank prepped and ready to be used as a raised planter.

Onions planted.

Sweet Banana Peppers and Jalapeno Peppers planted, along with some Marigolds to help reduce bugs.

Another space saving idea, is to reuse pallets as planters.  We buy our livestock feed in bulk, so get a new pallet every month.  While they are great to store hay on, after awhile, you end up with an abundance of them!  Ours are just plain, raw, pine wood.  They are perfect to reuse as a planter!  We staple weed control paper on the back of the pallet.  Fill it with garden soil and plant in between the wooden slats on the front of the pallet.  Again, it takes up very little space and is easily moved wherever you need it.  Weeds are easily controlled this way too.  You can paint the pallet first and use it as a decorative flower planter or leave it natural for a rustic look.  The possibilities are endless!!




Basic pallet, ready to be transformed into a planter.

Weed cloth stapled on the back (underside) of the pallet.

The backside of the pallet, showing the weed control fabric better.

Pallet filled with dirt and ready to plant.

Watermelon, cucumbers and lettuce planted.

We added in some marigolds, to help with bug control.

I like to add in a substance to the dirt, to help retain moisture.  We live in the south, so have hot, dry days.  This helps to keep the roots moist and helps the dirt to retain more moisture.  We've found our plants and flowers REALLY do well with this!  I buy it on the internet from Amazon.  You don't use very much at all....just a sprinkling of it worked into the top dirt does the trick! 

That's it for the tips from this week!  Remember, the new blog posts will be every TWO weeks through the rest of the spring and summer.  They will be posted on Mondays now too.  Thanks for reading and I hope you all have a wonderful week!  Enjoy your spring weather and planting!