Spicy Chickens Round Circle PVC Beds: The Making Of
I have many requests through the years asking me, how what why.
In 2006 I won a local eBay auction for more than a thousand PVC tubes for only $20
Originally planning to use them as fence post for our livestock, we just eat the critters instead. ;-)
Now what to do with these pipes. Hmmmm
Gardening is great except the part of bending over and picking the weeds plus the fact that we live in such a low lying area that if we do not raise our beds, torrential rain will turn our gardens into a mud pits and rot the roots. ( lesson learned here the first year)
So one spring as I was contemplating the raised bed constructed of just hilled dirt, this idea popped in and the rest is history.
First: The pips are 3 inches in diameter, 6 foot long and roughly schedule 40, they are not perfect like you would buy for plumbing because they were made as center tubes for large rolls of paper from the mill.
Now I don't have any pics of me driving them into the ground, but I just cut them in half square and sledge hammered them in, cutting a 45 degree angle made the leading edge wander as you drove them in.
There are roughly 78 per circle, driven into the ground about a foot. I’m here to tell you that is a lot of swings. Lol at only 50 hits each, 20 circles is 78,000 hits.
To make the circle, I cut a 6 foot 2x6 and drilled a 1 inch hole in the center. A 7/8 inch steel stake about 2 foot long was driven through the hole into the ground so the 2x6 would spin. Than standing on the board the pipes were placed at the end and driven in, spin the board a little and drive another etc. till the circle was made.
Now to cut the tops: I ripped 1/2 OSB about 16 inches wide, cut the proper angles to make an octagon with the flat sides being just over 6 foot, than staggered the joints and glued and screwed together, jigsaw worked great for cutting the outside exactly 6 foot round.
A 24 foot ratchet strap was loosely tightened around the upper area of pipes holding the OSB circle in place but allowing me move it up and down, using a level I made it plum and tightened the ratchet strap, using a sawzall cutting the pipes off flush with the OSB.
For fastening them together I screwed in drywall screws from both directions in the open end tops and released the clamps. For the first 2 years this worked just fine but eventually the pipes started to elongate do to the pressure, so one spring I shoveled the dirt to the center and re- ratchet strapped then banded with electric fence wire but other steel substrates could be used.
When we first started I could get wagon loads of organic compost for $25 each from a farmer a couple miles down the road, but eventually this became unavailable. We filled the bottom half with sand for drainage and the upper half with sifted topsoil. To plant our peppers I would set the root ball on top of the soil and pull dirt up around it as you can see in the pic, then fill around them with 4 to 5 inches of weed seed free compost.
Need a bump please
I have many requests through the years asking me, how what why.
In 2006 I won a local eBay auction for more than a thousand PVC tubes for only $20
Originally planning to use them as fence post for our livestock, we just eat the critters instead. ;-)
Now what to do with these pipes. Hmmmm
Gardening is great except the part of bending over and picking the weeds plus the fact that we live in such a low lying area that if we do not raise our beds, torrential rain will turn our gardens into a mud pits and rot the roots. ( lesson learned here the first year)
So one spring as I was contemplating the raised bed constructed of just hilled dirt, this idea popped in and the rest is history.
First: The pips are 3 inches in diameter, 6 foot long and roughly schedule 40, they are not perfect like you would buy for plumbing because they were made as center tubes for large rolls of paper from the mill.
Now I don't have any pics of me driving them into the ground, but I just cut them in half square and sledge hammered them in, cutting a 45 degree angle made the leading edge wander as you drove them in.
There are roughly 78 per circle, driven into the ground about a foot. I’m here to tell you that is a lot of swings. Lol at only 50 hits each, 20 circles is 78,000 hits.
To make the circle, I cut a 6 foot 2x6 and drilled a 1 inch hole in the center. A 7/8 inch steel stake about 2 foot long was driven through the hole into the ground so the 2x6 would spin. Than standing on the board the pipes were placed at the end and driven in, spin the board a little and drive another etc. till the circle was made.
Now to cut the tops: I ripped 1/2 OSB about 16 inches wide, cut the proper angles to make an octagon with the flat sides being just over 6 foot, than staggered the joints and glued and screwed together, jigsaw worked great for cutting the outside exactly 6 foot round.
A 24 foot ratchet strap was loosely tightened around the upper area of pipes holding the OSB circle in place but allowing me move it up and down, using a level I made it plum and tightened the ratchet strap, using a sawzall cutting the pipes off flush with the OSB.
For fastening them together I screwed in drywall screws from both directions in the open end tops and released the clamps. For the first 2 years this worked just fine but eventually the pipes started to elongate do to the pressure, so one spring I shoveled the dirt to the center and re- ratchet strapped then banded with electric fence wire but other steel substrates could be used.
When we first started I could get wagon loads of organic compost for $25 each from a farmer a couple miles down the road, but eventually this became unavailable. We filled the bottom half with sand for drainage and the upper half with sifted topsoil. To plant our peppers I would set the root ball on top of the soil and pull dirt up around it as you can see in the pic, then fill around them with 4 to 5 inches of weed seed free compost.
Need a bump please
