Raised beds from recycled materials

I was supposed to be writing a post this week about designing my raised beds, but I decided to go on holiday instead. However, because I’m so dedicated to the Rocket Gardens cause, I’m now writing this is, whilst sat in a bar, nursing a cold beer, at the bottom of the slopes. It’s a hard life!.
I realised late last week that not everyone has a saw mill with a friendly owner nearby. Not only that, it’s not always that easy to transport materials from a saw mill unless you have a trailer or van. This started me thinking about other cheap or free materials that are available for creating beds or containers. I’m sure you’ll be able to come up with more interesting ideas than I have but here a few to get you going.
Firstly, used car tyres are brilliant. They can be fitted in the back of a car and can be picked up for nothing from a local tyre fitter. They're great for growing carrots, courgettes or even spuds, if you stack them on top of one another. Raised beds made out of tyres look a bit like the tyre walls in the Grand Prix. They also hold compost rather well, too.
Old soft drink cans are pretty handy if you can collect enough of them. We’ve built raised beds from them in the past by sticking them together using silicone (which can be bought from a DIY store) and then making them into a circular raised bed.

If you have any builders nearby, see if you can get hold of the big nylon bags that sand comes in. They hold compost really quite well and if you don’t grab them they’ll probably get put in the bin.
Reclamation yards are also a brilliant source of building goodies. They will have a whole host of fantastic things to grow in- old floor boards, bricks and a million other things, if you keep your mind open.
If you have any ideas that you’d like to share, please comment and tell everyone about it.

I'm back off to the slopes!

Cheers and gone,

Rob