Noticed something smart at a community garden in Portland

I visited a community garden in Portland last weekend and saw they used old wine barrels cut in half for raised beds. They stacked two on top of each other and filled them with soil - perfect depth for root veggies without spending $100 on lumber. Anyone tried this with other barrel types?

3 comments

3 Comments

mary77613d agoMost Upvoted

You ever try using food-grade plastic barrels? I picked up a couple of 55-gallon ones from a carwash supply place for like ten bucks each. Cut them in half longways with a jigsaw, drilled some drainage holes, and they've been solid for three seasons now. The plastic doesn't rot like wood does, so I don't have to worry about replacing them every few years. One thing to watch out for is that the barrels are blue or white plastic, not the black ones that might've held chemicals. I've also seen people use those big metal olive oil cans but those get rusty quick in my experience. So yeah, barrel beds work fine, just keep an eye on what they held before.

luna89113d ago

Tbh the wine barrel trick is clever until your neighbor starts eyeing your raised beds like they're going to sprout a free Chardonnay. Ngl I'd probably end up with a bunch of pickle barrels and confuse the whole garden into thinking I'm running a deli. Honestly sounds like a solid hack though, just make sure the previous contents weren't toxic or you'll grow some very confused kale.

jordan_young11d ago

Buddy of mine tried this with a barrel that used to hold soy sauce. Entire garden smelled like a Chinese takeout for a month and everything came out tasting salty. Took him two seasons to get the soil balanced again.