Recycled Raised Bed

A few weeks ago, a neighbor of mine had cleaned house and was throwing out dozens of things including an "under the bed" storage container. Disheartened to see this plastic go straight to a landfill, I got an idea of how to recycle this into something very useful for the garden!

First, I gave the container a good cleaning to get rid of any 'bad' bacteria or fungus spores that might have collected in the trash pile. Dish soap and a hose nozzle go a long way!

Then I drilled some holes in the bottom (forgot to take a picture of that one). I tried to model it after grower's pots in size, frequency, and spacing of holes. Also keep in mind that things you don't eat like to grow in corners and to not making any holes that could damage the integrity of the structure.

After that, it was as simple as adding some potting mix in! Beginner tip: always use potting mix with containers, especially in FL! Soil will compact and stay soaked and rot the plants away (I learned this the hard way). (The mulch is in there because I ran out of potting mix and needed a filler to hold everything in place.)

Then came our favorite time, time to begin planting! Here I have some broccoli and cauliflower seedlings beginning as we go into the "cold" (for Florida) months. When I filled in the rest of the raised bed, I added in some romaine lettuce, strawberries, and other seedlings over time

They look so lovely, ready to grow! You can also see this raised bed make an appearance in my recent post about a Catnip Mystery as well!