I am growing my strawberries in a 4 foot by 8 foot 12 inch raised bed using treated timber. It take 3 pieces 8 feet long and 12, 4 inch long decking screws for 32 square feet. With 1 more piece of timber you have an 8 X 8 for 64 Square feet. These beds last from 10 to 15 years. I have considered using fire rings for sunken bed gardens for sensitive plant like figs. After a cold winter I would have canes 18 inches long instead of 2 inches long at ground level.
Just remember Cake R Square, Pie R Round.
You may be better off going to a local pipe supply store and buying a 10 foot stick of double wall 36" hdpe culvert pipe than the galvanized pipe. It will last longer and you can cut to whatever height you want.
That is a pretty good density, small space plant by nature. I know perfect conditions would be ideal, but I may not be able to give them that.
You could grow in gutters mounted on a fence or wall, pinterest has lots of great ideas.
super idea but in my area its around $1000/20ft. im too cheap for that.
If you are OK with LDPE you can double the size of the 36in and go with a 110gal heavy duty tank for the same price.
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ive seen themā¦but FB is full of them too. I did see a guy who tip roots blackberries come up with a sweet gutter propagation channelā¦ Lays the gutter in the row and tip roots like 10 canes at a time.
I have some old gutters, but i also have old cinderblocksā¦ maybe do bothā¦ see which i like best.
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I mentioned the gutters assuming your cost per foot would be less than a bunch of blocks, but if you already have both you have nothing to lose! You could even do a raised gutter setup above a cinder block tower and really make good use of a smaller space. Iād imagine the plants would still get ample sunlight.
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Iām not as familiar with LDPE but I imagine it is stable and long lasting, so yes that should work well. Iām fortunate that I can occasionally get free scraps of pipe at work so I might grab some culvert pipes to try this out.
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My end goal is something like thisā¦ i saw a guy doing it on the side of his barn and at first i thought they were rabbit cages or something but inside there were strawberries. Last year i just got too crazy with propagating runners and i only got a small cropā¦then changed my mind on my bed after the deer browsed it twice.
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The only place and plants I have succeed to to grow in gutters is on my 3 story house with undesirable weeds. Not joking.
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I checked out the Culvert Pipe and I am sure that would work wellā¦ but I just like the look of the Birdies Garden Bedsā¦ I have been watching the āSelf Sufficient Meā guy on Youtube for years and he has been using them for a LONG time and really brags on them.
For the longest time only available in Australiaā¦ but in the past few years, available in the USA.
Below some details on their 8 in 1 bedā¦
One of the options in detailā¦
The Guy below James Pā¦ shows how to make a hinged hoop house cover for oneā¦
They come in several colorsā¦ I like that color that James has thereā¦
I think the 15" tall ones would be fine for Strawberry beds and I may try thoseā¦ They do come in much taller versions too.
Two of those options work out to around 24 sfā¦ a max of around 100 strawberry plants.
TNHunter
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I like them too. I wish i wasnt such a cheapskate. Part of me thinks that that corrugated roofing and bending the corners would work. I know there are youtube videos on bending them but ive not tried it yet.
@krismoriah ---- Rural King has a nice looking galvanized fire ringā¦ 49.99
36" diameter x 12" deep.
As you can see from the PIC, it is made in 4 pieces that you assemble to make the round fire ring.
You can get 8ā Corrugated Galvanized Steel 31 Gauge Roof Panel at Home Depo for $22.00
It is 24" wide.
If you could rip one of those in half giving you (2) 8 ft by 12" piecesā¦ and use that with the (half circle parts) of that Rural King fire ringā¦ So that you had a half circle on each end, and a 8 ft stretch in between. That would be a nice sized bed (around 31 sf)ā¦ and not too awfully expensive.
Might be tricky (or impossible) to get the corrugated parts to line up and get 2 pieces 12" out of that roof panel.
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There are some 48" galvanized fire rings out thereā¦ most seem to run around 90.00
This one looks to be 18.3 inch tall. If you wanted one a little deeper this might work.
48" would be a little difficult to reach across so you may have to walk around itā¦
Where the 36" give you 7.06 sf, the 48" would give 12.5 sf
2 x 2 x 3.1416 = 12.5664 ā possibly 50 or a few more strawberry plants.
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Im still too cheap and like to recycle. I used to have a fleet of dump trucks and semisā¦ i sold all kinds of my old broken and warped rims to people as fire pitsā¦ i shouldve saved some for planters. I think they should go for $20 or so at a good heavy truck junkyard. These are the old dayton two piece rimsā¦ obsolete but work really well as firepits. You can also ask for stud pilot rims, if you flip them upside down they have nice drainholes where the lugs go.
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@krismoriah @TNHunter I love the way the galvanized steel fire rings look, but they are so pricey!!
I just picked up this concrete mixer for a decent price, it is quite large. I will test a few strawberries in it, even if it doesnāt work I will certainly use it for lettuces.
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If you look at the cost per square foot of growing spaceā¦ all of those are about the same.
Birdies 24 sq ft at a cost of 7.08 per sq ft.
Rural king 36 is 7.06 sq ft at 7.08 per sq ft.
The 48 fire pitā¦ 12.5 sq ftā¦ at 7.20 per sq ft.
I am not ruling out masonary options with my new house build eitherā¦ but have not priced those yet.
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If you bought that at Lowesā¦u may want to take it back. For $1 more you can get this at Rural King, its bigger and super heavy duty. I am gonna buy a few more of them for propagation and other ideasā¦
I donāt have a location near me and shipping is nuts from them! Besides I think that would be excessively deep for strawberries in a container.
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Probably right. I will likely cut one in half with a sawzall and make 2 of them. im mostly going to use them for sticking cuttings and storage. Everything is so expensive nowadays i think they are a super deal for how heavy duty they are.
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