In this video, I show what happened to my steel-raised garden beds after 12 years of use. Also, I compare high-quality Birdies raised garden beds to other brands of steel beds to see which is better.
Go here to get Birdies Raised Garden bed in the USA: https://shop.epicgardening.com/ and use SSME2020 for a 5% discount.
In Australia & New Zealand go to https://birdiesgardenproducts.com.au/ or https://birdiesgardenproducts.co.nz/ and use Code SSMEbird for a 5% discount.
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Self Sufficient Me is based on our small 3-acre property/homestead in SE Queensland Australia about 45kms north of Brisbane – the climate is subtropical (similar to Florida). I started Self Sufficient Me in 2011 as a blog website project where I document and write about backyard food growing, self-sufficiency, and urban farming in general. I love sharing my foodie and DIY adventures online so come along with me and let’s get into it! Cheers, Mark 🙂
#garden #gardening #raisedbeds
Great videos, thank you! Subscribed. Jealous of the nice weather you have down there, compared to what we have here in upstate NY with so much snow. Quick question, I see in your other videos that you have piles of compost, manure, and wood chips lying around, and you also fill the bottoms of your tall raised beds with loose twigs and tree branches. This all looks like a great opportunity for the rodents such as rats to build themselves nice new homes. Do you have any problems with the rodents, especially with the rats? How do you deal with them, or make sure they don't infest your garden?
Gotta get one of those birdies
You can sand blast the bad raised gardens and remove the rust. You may find a paint that will work for you to recoat the container.
Painting the inside with tar might help make them last longer
The cheap raised beds have lasted 6 years already and they were much cheaper, what's the problem with rust if it lasts 5+ years? I guess it depends on the price of cheap vs branded.
Why not just grow in the ground?
Coat the inside with a water based asphaltic urethane like EPRO http://www.cadeco.com/productfiles/er.pdf spray it on with a hopper and brush it in. you have to have a release for the water in the bins by allowing water to leach out from the bottom. try 2" of gravel on bottom and place fiber mat/screen over that then
I wonder if I should be worried about metals leeching into the soil.
Hi Mark, why did you use raised gardens instead of planting straight into ground? It seems you have a good garden soil quality!
We are looking at making raised garden beds. Currently we have old 44 gallon barrels in half using a wicking effect. It has been brilliant, but due to the water coming out through the thin steel they have started to rust. We have loads of steel from shipping container walls (we have built our house out of containers ourselves) and we are considering using the old walls for the walls of the garden bed. I have my reservations, but hubby thinks it's good as it will last past our lifetime. We have seen the video where you put logs and bracken in the base and have decided that would be a good idea. We do live in the warmer part of QLD with less water. We have very good shade cloth to help cover the container walls to keep them from heating up too much. What are your thoughts? Keep up the great vids too!! A big dirty thumbs up here!
Thanks for this Mark. I wanted some more beds as I only have a small one currently and hubby said we'd get some good quality bigger ones. Knew you used Birdie's but wanted to see why; this video explains perfectly.
Any ideas for a good European alternative?
Thank you for your videos Mark! I started watching a few years ago when I had a garden in a sharehouse (but then I moved into an apartment) I've just bought a house so you're helping inform me to use best materials for a long term garden!
The opening wide shots make me feel like I just walked in your backyard and you looked up to greet me.
Cool vids, just subbed! You could use promosm to promote your videos!
My Husband and I are doing up our backyard in Western Australia and we had decided that we would put some raised garden beds in. We are definitely going to put the Birdies raised beds in. I am glad I came across this Video as now it is confirmed that it is the right choice 🙂 Thank you Mark for putting out all these awesome Video's.
I had someone dump colour bond fence sheets on my lawn , so I cut them up and made round garden beds with them, I only bought the nuts and bolts and a cutting disc and some soil. If I get five years I will call it a win for me . All up for less than $50 , two raised garden beds , ten bags of potting mix , a packet of bolts and nuts, then some of my own mulched compost and my mulched up bougainvillea (used my Hansa CE3 chipper $1400 ) . Thanks to your vid on Hansa I bought one and to date in just over a year its saved my son and I about $2300 in hire fees (about $260 /4 hours) so its already paid for its self , I have mulched a tree ,tree branches , weeds , spikey bloody devil bush , neighbors palm fronds and a frangipani all into little tiny pieces . The worms love it.
Hello Mark!!! Thanks for this video. My garden beds are made of wood mainly and otrhes made of cement blocks. One question: your metal beds heat the substrate or soil? See you
Thank you for your channel and for sharing this Mark!! My boyfriend found your new channel and sent it to me. I've been trying to find similar raised beds here in the US based on the idea I got from your old videos and didn't know where to find this. God bless you! Keep growing.
I recently bought 3 Birdie beds, they are now assembled and in position and being loaded up with various garden junk – old sleepers, weeds, prunings, cardboard boxes, even 2 pairs of old cotton jeans – it's really tidied up the yard! Then begins the hard work of carting soil in to fill them to the top. Then finally the fun part – planting!
Are these Birdie beds??
Rust Oleum paint before and now. After a good sandblasting. Great shows and information.
i would love to share with you how to get raised bed like some of yours free and is great cause it keeps them out ok landfills. PM and ill send photos of mine and where to get
Do you set your containers on concrete or in concrete or just on the ground?
who would give a thumbs down ? GREAT info – love you man.
Hey…LOVE the enthusiasm, love the information, love the energy…..but mate, you need to start editing because these vids dribble on and take 2-3x longer than they need to. Get to the point, get it done and spend the extra energy with making other videos. Thanks for all the info you do provide!
A very interesting video because I just bought a couple of metal raised beds and of course want them to last. Does it make sense, so that they don't rust so quickly inside, to line them again with plastic wrap before putting soil in them?
@Self Sufficient Me Thanks for the update as it is very much appreciated!
What a wonderful comparison. I just received two birdies beds and looking forward to trying them out this upcoming Spring.