I live in New England. That means that I manage to grow rocks when nothing else will grow. LOL! Actually, during the last Ice Age, a glacier carried millions of tons of rocks with it to this area and as it melted and recessed back, the rocks were deposited (heavily) throughout this region. Early settlers literally piled the rocks to clear the land enough for crops but later they stacked the rocks to create dividers between properties and to keep animals from crops. Over time, those crude walls were fashioned into finely shaped and fitted works of engineering. Many of these walls are still in existence and beautiful after 200 or more years. My ancestors were good about using what they had to construct what they needed.
Now, all these years later, I do the same thing; I use what I have to construct what I need. There is no sense buying blocks or rocks to tier my hillside garden when I have a healthy and FREE supply. I thought I would share pictures of my raised beds. These pictures were from spring of last year when I did some prolific building. I haven’t been as busy this spring with my ankle injury but there will be at least two more new beds for this year.
These pics were later in the season when the plants went in and the beds were all done. Speaking of frugal gardening supplies, the wood chips in the pathways was free from our own pile of chips. We had chipped all the tops from our trees that we had taken down the previous fall. More free supplies!
There are lots of ways to create raised beds without spending money. Recycled tires and wood taken from free, discarded pallets can be used. Bricks from demolished sites work great (get permission first!). Like so many other things about frugality, imagination and thinking outside the box is the most important step in finding and creatively using discared items for frugal gardening.