Beds made of used paving slab?

[meloncauli]

Sinking paving slabs edge-on about 30cm deep so 10-15cm above path level to make a weed/slug barrier around the beds? Would it work?

The old wooden raised beds have rotted and aren't good for much except slug-food. Trying to look for a cheaper/tougher alternative..

[Cadalot]

Yep that will work, take a look at the Scrapyard Challenge thread and you will see roofing tiles being used for the same purpose. Me I would rather lay them flat and use them for the paths, but each to their own.

[meloncauli]

I guess I also wondered how others might feel if there were hundreds of kilos of concrete or stone embedded in an allotment they took on.. or is there a good chance they'd appreciate sturdy and durable ready-made beds? When we took it on a year ago there were four layers of weedy manky carpets that we had to dispose of over the whole thing, so I'm a bit wary of paying the favour forwards!

[Bigmallly]

I'm with Cad, if you want to use paving then use it for a path. It'll cost you a fortune to edge beds with them. Much cheaper to use scaffold boards & should last several years if treated first.

[meloncauli]

Any idea where to get cheap scaffold boards? They seem pretty pricey at the local wood recycling, while used paving slabs are easy to find locally for free/very cheap as long as you can take them away.

[Cadalot]

Have a chat with local scaffolding companies, as when they get to a point where they are unsafe for use on a scaffold 9 time out of 10 they burn them, they may charge a little for them but that may include dropping them off to the site for you if they are local.

[Bigmallly]

Yep, twice in one day I agree with Cad...........now there's a rarity..............Due to H&S regs scaffold board have a life span so you should be able to pick up a 3m length for around a fiver.

[slappy]

Sinking paving slabs edge-on about 30cm deep so 10-15cm above path level to make a weed/slug barrier around the beds? Would it work?

The old wooden raised beds have rotted and aren't good for much except slug-food. Trying to look for a cheaper/tougher alternative..

I don't think it will stop weeds or slugs.
Weeds will easily grow through the gaps in paving stones and the seeds will be blown over the top of the paving slabs. Slugs will easily vlimb over then. I have seen slugs on the wall of my house about 15ft up.

[Snadger]

Quite a few leek 'trenches' on our site are constructed of vertical paving flags. These won't have been bought though, rather scrounged from skips or got for free off gumtree.

The favourite for exhibition leek growers seems to be corrugated iron, set vertically with scaffold pipes knocked in as supports. The 'trenches' are then hooped using the scaffold poles as supports for plastic tubing and polythene stretched over the top. Not very pretty I have to say, but one of the guys holds the world record for blanch leeks using this method, so i can't really fault it.

[Cadalot]

Keep a look out on Freecycle I picked up 8.1 metres of kerb edging today see Alans Allotment: Free Stuff

[meloncauli]

Yep, twice in one day I agree with Cad...........now there's a rarity..............Due to H&S regs scaffold board have a life span so you should be able to pick up a 3m length for around a fiver.

That sounds somewhat expensive, at that price it'll be around £300 to replace all of the beds on the allotment (and they pretty well all need doing), while gumtree always has several local people giving various used concrete away for free to anyone willing to move them.

Am I just really cheap?

[Martin H]

The cheapest way is not to edge the beds at all, just mound the soil up. That's what I do. I cut off encroaching weeds with a spade and tidy the edges when the beds are empty. Meanwhile there's no nice damp nooks and crannies for the slugs and snails to hide in.

Just a suggestion!

[ecudc]

Some guys on our allotments have a large raise bed for roots walled by slabs and filled with a very sandy compost. It's not going to win any beauty pageants but it seems to work.

[Cadalot]

OK - look around your area for when they are doing a loft conversion, lots of 100x50mm roof joist are normally removed and put in a skip on the front of the property, you may have to take out the off nail but that's a source of timber edging.

The timber in the photo below came off a car port that my sister decided she didn't want anymore and I re purposed the timber. You can see in the back ground that my original beds are level with the path, I use plastic trim that a window fitting company were scrapping when they moved from their year behind my allotment. Keep your eyes open there is always something being thrown away by someone you can re purpose.