recycled Materials to make raised beds

[adamb]

Hello,

Loving this site - my best find since lolcats! ;)

I am a new homeowner and our gardens have been flattenned under 6 inches of large gravel and weedliner for the 10 years before i got in there with the shovel! The heavy clay soil is absolutely rock hard underneath and as such i'm going to use raised beds for my veg/salad growing needs.

Can anyone recommend materials that are often thrown away for constructing raised beds? I've seen lots of MDF cupboards/cupboard doors that have been fly-tipped (I hate those kind of people!!) in the local area, but not sure how they'll fare outside. I get the train everyday and out of the window i constantly see old railway 'junk' - sleepers, concrete slabs - that would be good, but doubt that South West Trains would bother to gather and sell it off.

If anyone has any creative ways to make raised beds out of recycled materials, please share. :)
otherwise i'm buying timber and i'd rather not.

Thanks!
Adam

[skeast]

I used old scaffold planks, painted them with some gloss paint that I was given and then 'lined' the insides with builders plastic I talked my builder into leaving behind. They are 3 years old and look as primitive/wonky as they did when I put them up.

You might want to pick axe the clay soil under the beds to break it up a bit and bung some manure or compost in if you can. Well you probably wont 'like' the job, but it will be worth it.

MDF would not last very long, as well as probably having nasty glues and goodness only knows what in them.

I feel your pain about the frustration of passing perfectly good stuff every day and seeing it deteriorate.

Good luck

Sarah

[snapdragon]

I scrounged some old floorboard offcuts from a house renovation, and pinned them down with U shaped loops from a car dog-guard

[Skippy]

Scaffold planks do seem to be the material of choice, but the use of railway sleepers seems to divide opinion. Some will happily use them and others , myself included, are wary because the things were impregnated with all kinds of nasties.
As said forget about mdf, even the so called waterproof stuff which is green in colour won't last very long outside. Plywood can work but is a bit thin, look for 3/4" shuttering ply I've had some outside for several years and it hasn't delaminated so far.
I've also seen slabs , bricks and slates used and in my old house there were concrete sections all over the garden , mostly as paths mind, that according to the neighbour were parts of a dismantled airraid shelter.


Pete

[oldjerry]

Don't know what lolcats is,but if it isn't cats that look like Hitler check that out.

Anyhow, the only thing that gets near to condemned scaffold boards(don't pay more than £3) is Armco,get this from a serious recycling/scrapyard,and cut it with a disc cutter. BWs.

[wabbit955]

mine all made up from old decking boards lined with old ground sheet been there 5 years now still all in very good nick still

got a couple made from bricks to, all bricks come from a wall that had to be taken down in garden

[becks77]

I use old tyres for my raised beds and some old bricks to construct another, the last on is mad of odds and ends of wooden planks etc

[contadina]

Abandoned fridges make great raised beds and as a bonus they are insulated too. I've nearly finished constructing a keyhole garden using rocks from the garden and a bit of chicken wire for the central basket.

[Thomzo]

I've got a raised border which is edged with lumps of concrete that were lying about in the garden. That doesn't help you much if you don't happen to have useful lumps of concrete lying about. But some of your neighbours might? And I'm sure you'd be very popular if you volunteered to clear their rubble for them.

Google pallet gardens as well, not quite what you're looking for but great fun.

Zoe