Our Strawberry Bed—Recycled Round Baler Belts.

For a couple of years now, we have wanted to get a strawberry bed started. However, I wanted it to be raised. Since we really don’t like spending much to garden, as this is to help us save money, we just kept putting it off. Until, one night when I sat up in bed and woke my husband.

“Honey, I have it. I know what to use for our strawberry bed.”

“Uh huh, ok.” Moaning

“No, honey, wake up. I am serious”

“Uh huh”

So, I roll over and go back to sleep, but am having sweet dreams of how to build our strawberry bed. We get up the next morning, and I tell him all about it. He gets that , “my wife is so cool” look in his eye and says, Philip can build that with little instruction. YAY!

So, you ask what are round baler belts?

See those black straps on the back there? Those are the belts. This piece of farm equipment known as a big round baler, makes big round bales. Now you are asking what a big round bale is?

The round “bundles” there are Big round hay bales. Yes, they are about 5 foot tall. That is my husband who is 5 foot 9 inches on top of those bales. Those bales weigh around 1500-1800 lbs each.

So, we plan the measurements, gather a supply list, and plan how much soil to organic matter (horse poop and straw). 96-98%/2-4%

Supplies:

• Baler belts—we used two and one half or so
• Bolts and nuts-6 each
• Soild and organic matter—lots
• Utility knife to cut the belts

First we staked out where we would put our bed. We chose a place on the north side of our house, east of some light trees. It will get morning sun, some early to mid afternoon sun, and then a bit of shade towards evening.

We then measured out the lowest ring for the belt, cut it, and then bolted the ends together. Laid it on the ground where we had planned to have our bed, and started filling with dirt and organic matter until it was about an inch over the top edge of the belt.

The next layer up is about half the side, so there is about 15 inches of dirt area. Then the next layer is about 2 ft across. We did each layer just like the one before.

We let the dirt settle and watered it down real well for about a week and a half. Then we planted our strawberries in it. Here is what our “free” raised strawberry bed looks like completed.

The final cost was $32 for the strawberry plants. We had all the other supplies, as we had an area of dirt that needed to be moved, dh had the bolts, and we of course have baler belts running out our shed.

Would you like to see how I incorporate our homeschool and garden? Check it out here.

Now, a question for my readers. I have 8 baby chicks. How do I know when they can be moved outside? How do I tell what gender they are? Anything else I should know? Thanks!

This article is part of the Works for Me Wednesday Meme.

Related posts:

1. Frugal Friday-Making My Own Laptop Sleeve-My Plan -Not a Tute As I have posted before, I am getting a laptop...
2. Frugal Heavy Duty Tomato Cages Are you tired of buying tomato cages that are not...
3. There is Always Room for Improvement—Changing the Home to Fit Family Needs "The Lord will guide you always; he will satisfy your...
4. Homeschool Workboxes in the Garden Over the last couple of weeks, we have done a...
5. Header Design— I am still going to work on it some, but...