Pop-up raised beds

[juliet]

Mirrored from Twisting Vines.

The manufacturer of these instant raised beds emailed me a while back. I haven’t tried them out myself so don’t know how sturdy they are, but they look like an interesting solution if you want raised beds in a hurry, or for an organisation like a school or community centre who might prefer a commercial type of raised bed.

The circular structure means that if you push them together you’ll lose a very little bit of space compared to a similar square bed, but there’s not much in it, and they’re clearly less hassle than the DIY pallet construction option. For ease of working the size does look good. I’d be interested to hear how they work in practice if anyone has encountered them?

(Oh, in fact I’ve just seen that you can score the sides so you could make them hexagonal and avoid any space loss at all. Neat!)

The owner of the site also sent me an idea involving DIY floor tiles and copper wire raised bed construction, pointing out that the copper would repel slugs. This was his quickly-knocked-up version:

Tile panels mostly wired together

Lined (with a plant liner of some sort) and full of compost and plants

(both images c. David Roberts)

He also mentioned the possibility of tidying it up a bit or making curved sides with a tile cutter. You would need to be a lot better than I am with a tile cutter to manage that! I am however now slightly annoyed that our left-over kitchen tiles are a) Marmoleum not slate, and b) too small to do that with anyway. Bah.

For avoidance of doubt: I have not been offered any recompense for making this post; I just think they’re an interesting idea.

Comments

[samvara]

They look really cool!

[alexmc.livejournal.com]

Oooh - I have some pallets spare.... and want some raised beds for vegetables...hmmmm

[valkyriekaren.livejournal.com]

Cool idea!

I won't be doing any planting this year as I'm moving in the summer, but I hope wherever I move to has an outdoor space. Preferably, this time, one with outside access and some actual topsoil so I'm not forever lugging bags of compost and sand through my flat.