Lowes concrete blocks how to#

Raised beds are our best bet here in Central Oregon, because our rocky, volcanic soil makes it nearly impossible to plant anything directly in the ground without some serious work. And you don’t have to deal with rocks, roots, and other obstacles to getting your plants seated in fertile ground. Building a raised bed allows you to create the soil mix you want from scratch. You can amend your naturally occurring dirt and get straight to planting.īut if you’re dealing with a high water table, bad soil pH, or a rocky hardpan underlayer (like me), raised-bed gardening is a great alternative. If you live in an area that has fertile soil, in-ground gardening is simple and cheap. In the end, all three of us were impressed by how cheaply and easily our gardens came together.

Several hours later (yes, that same day), the beds were complete.Īs it turns out, I wasn’t the only Wirecutter staffer who was bewitched by these marvels of modern engineering: Two of my coworkers were building their own block-based beds at the same time. I rushed outside, measured our space, and texted her the dimensions.

Lowes concrete blocks how to#

In video after video, gardeners of all experience levels gushed over the simplicity and cost-effectiveness of these concrete blocks, and they shared tips on how to put them to best use.

I quickly discovered that people really love these bricks. While she browsed the tomato starts, I scoured YouTube. Instead, my partner was at our local home-improvement super-center and stumbled upon Oldcastle’s planter wall blocks. But we knew we wanted to invest in a garden, and we knew we wanted raised beds.īeing a Wirecutter writer, I’d love to tell you that I obsessively researched the subject before building my garden beds. We were tired, our bank accounts were nearly empty, and we didn’t have many tools in the garage. Two years ago, my partner and I moved into a new house-our first as homeowners. Though much of gardening is passive-simply watering, waiting, and watching-the hard work is all front-loaded: lifting bags of soil, compost, and fertilizer tilling the earth and, of course, building beds for your plants. There’s also the added confidence of knowing exactly what went into the soil that produced it all.īut before you reap, first you must sow. And home-grown produce almost always tastes better than store-bought because it’s picked when it’s perfectly ripe. Tending growing plants is a meditative, contemplative process that (for me at least) provides something beautiful to focus on when the world is hard to process. Gardening is a hobby that’s good for both body and mind.