Well, last week, we acquired a barrel. It was a food grade used barrel. I had in mind to make a bunch of raised beds out of a barrel half.

Now you might wonder… what the heck does she want raised beds for when she has 3 acres?

Good question! Because it’s harder to bend over all the time and work in the dirt!!! And also, I want to be able to grow some herbs that are terribly good at being evasive, like mints and such. This way I can have a barrel of this mint and that mint and they will stay manageable.

Now I was going to try and build wooden raised beds and all, but money being tight and seeing just how quickly those deteriorate… my beds at the Moby were not worth saving!!! The wood was all just rough and rotting. I really didn’t want to use pressure treated wood, and the wood was just expensive. So I started to think about alternative solutions to quick, cheap and long lasting raised beds.

Since these barrels in my neck of the woods run between $5 and $10 dollars, I thought, if you cut them, drill a few drainage holes, pop in some compost and dirt, poof! You have a pretty durable raised bed for like a few bucks! And they are actually movable, though mine got a little heavy after they had 100 pounds of dirt in them!!!

Anyway… I got my barrel and was ready to cut it and I went to the net and looked for a little guidance and there was really none to be found! Sure, there are lots of people talking about what to do with the barrels AFTER you cut them, but not too much about the actual cutting. So I decided to just give it a try with the limited tools we had and see how it went. And this is our story!

First up… measure your barrel and find the half way mark. Now, I did consider cutting my barrel into thirds, and just using the middle ring to contain plants in the ground, but then I read somewhere that once you cut that middle ring out, it becomes very floppy and not too rigid. And then you’d have pretty shallow ends. I wanted mine to be pretty tall, so that when I get really old, I won’t have to bend down tooooo much. (thinking ahead! Haha)

We took a fairly large drill bit and drilled a few holes into the side of the barrel, so that we could slip a jigsaw blade into the hole.

Now, one thing to consider, is that whatever was in your barrel, is probably going to leak out all over your nice clean screen porch floor. In this case, agave syrup.

Don’t ask me how I know that. Ahem.

So take it outside before you start to cut. You’ll thank me.

We just cut as straightly as we could, slowly turning the barrel and connecting the drill holes. I suppose in hind sight, you really only need one drilled hole to get you going, but it was just fun to drill holes in something, so, hey, whatever works good for you!

Who the heck uses 55 gallons of agave syrup? See note above about cutting outside. Agave syrup is very very sticky. And ants like it a lot.

Don’t ask me how I know that.

And poof! You have two perfectly good raised bed barrels, ready for planting!!! They do come in a lot of colors… but I thought the green would be nice. I might get a few white ones… green and white would look nice… or blue… Oh yeah… if you’re going to use that for plants, it’s probably a good idea to drill a few drainage holes in the bottoms…

We didn’t drill a ton of drainage holes because I like the idea that they will retain a nice reserve of water in the bottom and keep the bed moist. And if I feel that they are holding too much, we can always pop a few more in on the bottom sides to let water weep out.

Here is one that we planted all with vining peas! We made a little teepee for all the plants to climb up from some bamboo poles and a tie-wrap. Pretty simple. The plan is to have them eventually ring in our whole garden, sort of like a dog barrier/fence. And I hope that maybe it will keep little bunnies as well from trespassing. Of course, right now, two are hardly a barrier. We’ll start with a line of them at one side and see how they fare. I suspect I could easily do about 6 more barrels, cut in two for a side.

And the nice thing is that since my garden area is suspect to flooding… the raised bed barrels will be fine. And as it might take me a few years to keep adding a lot of good compost and dirt to the area, the barrels will ensure that perennial plants such as a lot of herbs and say, strawberries, blueberries and raspberries get a little protection and don’t go nuts spreading all over the place.

At least that’s the plan!!!