Cheap? Repurpose? Grow Food!!

We at Foodscapes will be happy to create a more elegant solution to your 4 season issues. The following are some quick, easy and relatively inexpensive solutions for seed starting and row covers for young tender plants. These season extension tools can help you put food on the table earlier in the year and farther into the winter.

This is our bed bed. This is a re-purposed frame from one of those high dollar air beds. We made a lasagna garden out of it last year or the year before, I forget now.

The arches are 1/2” conduit bent to a 4' diameter. The conduit comes 10' long and runs around $2.20 per stick.

The rope that is somewhat carelessly tied to the arches is to hold the plastic up to allow better access when working with the flats or transplants in the ground as the case may be. I am using clothes pins to hold the plastic up and out of the way.

This plastic is the good stuff. 6 mil UV treated clear greenhouse grade plastic 10' wide x 100' long before being cut to length for this project. I caught this on sale last fall. It is rated for 4 years of continuous service. We will only use it on a seasonal basis so hopefully it will last many, many years. Please note for 6 years we have used a good grade of contractor plastic which costs much less. We usually get 2 years of service out of the contractor plastic. By keeping the unused portions out of the sun, a roll can last a long time. The contractor plastic is opaque and does block more sun but again it is an inexpensive way to cheat the seasons.

The bed was already in place but needed weeding. I placed the bent conduit arches in on each side and pushed them in to the soil about 6” - 8” or so. In a longer run or row set up I could add a purling made from conduit and fastened with self tapping screws. There simply is no need for that with such a small structure. I measured twice and cut the plastic, draped it over and looked around for hold downs (sand bags, pots, bricks and a landscape timber). I purposely chose these materials to show this doesn't have to cost an arm and a leg to do. Sod staples, tent pegs would also work well. With a wood sided frame some cardboard or batten material and a staple gun could hold one or two sides.

The rope that is somewhat carelessly tied to the arches is to hold the plastic up to allow better access when working with the flats or transplants in the ground as the case may be. I am using clothes pins to hold the plastic up and out of the way.

The plastic teepee.


Here are some pictures from our early square foot gardens. I simply bought some ¾” plastic pipe cut it to fit inside the boxes. By placing the ends in the corners I avoided the need for brackets. Brackets can be bought or are easily made we chose to do without. We crossed the pipes and tied them together in the center and they lasted all winter. We used this technique with these beds for 3 or 4 years before the beds moved to another house to help our son get started gardening.We used the contractor grade plastic and dreamed of the good stuff, all the while cheating the seasons with early started vegetables.