[muntjac]

http://www.chat.allotment-garden.org/viewtopic.php?t=1947&highlight=lemonade+bottles

 no but i saw a  ghost ship off sable island nova scotia  :shock:

[noshed]

He was up in the bow letting the wind blow through his flowing locks. No wonder he didn't notice the iceberg.

[muntjac]

my hair was so short back then they played pool on my noggin its why i have it long now .and suprisingly it was darkker n i had a real dark tash lol

[bigtater]

when i first took over my plot it hadnt been used for ten years but after i had cleared it i found in a corner loads of plastic piping. about 18 inches long by about 10 inch wide  must be for something i thought so i wasnt going to throw them away in a hurry. chap on next plot tells me he used them as you describe with the milk cartons.

[king cauli]

i have seen a 17 ft long parsnip grown in a piece of drainpipe

[WG.]

Raised beds for cheapskates - here we go ... probably been done before but never mind.  This is specifically with large parsnip in mind since the end result gives a double row at approx 8" spacing each way.

Take two 3 litre milk flasks, cut off top and bottom.  Tie handles together with wire twist and simply place on soil as pictured below.  Fill with soil.


Take a further two and place beside the others to form a cross (top of picture).  These two have been anchored to the ground by inserting bamboo canes through the hollow part of the handle.   The bottom of the picture shows the first two bottles of the next cross.


And so on until you run out of bottles or patience (the latter in my case).  You are left with a double row at 8" spacing.


This allows you to construct a raised bed without any extra soil or compost being needed - simply scrape it together from the surrounding ground.  I'd expect the soil to follow air temperature much quicker.

No timber to buy and each cross of 4 requires only a wire twist and two short pieces of bamboo.

I'll let you know how it goes but I'm not expecting 17-footers!

[muntjac]

looks good to me , looking forward to see ya snips matey

[bridgeford]

dave  my oh uncle has a plot and he uses a bath and drum barrel`s for his carrotts and parsnips which is what im goin to try as the soil has to be realy fine i was told to mix compost soil and silver sand together and becuase they are raised also keeps the carrott fly away

[Annie]

We don`t drink that much milk so I`llhave to stick to digging in sand and garden compost,the beds should bequite nice in a few years when the rotations gone through,though OH is  trying to put a bath in the garden.

[WG.]

We don`t drink that much milk

Home yogurt making sorts that one out Annie     So much nicer than the shop-bought stuff.

I've been addicted for many years to recycling stuff and the plastic milk containers had me largely beaten.

I'm doing another garden which has sandy soil but is full of perennial weeds.  I'm hoping that the milk containers will give the parsnips enough of a head start so that their dense foliage suppresses weed growth.  The main attraction over raised beds is the much reduced demand on importing soil.

[Annie]

We have clay thus the raised beds thuogh I do wonder what I will do with extra soil which should result from years ofimproving it.
As to yougert,even with that 3L is a lot of milk!as to parsnips we`re turning our excess into wine before it bolts,now if only I could grow good carrots.....