Glass bottle raised garden

[sammy_roser]

Hello All.

Plan for my garden next year was to turn the back of the garden which is waterlogged most of the year into a plantable space.

At the moment there is a pile of clay dug up from the giant shed the fence and a lot of weeds. The area is quite large.

I was originally going to build a brick wall but have instead decided to build a bottle wall where visible. If I can get the majority of the bottles for free this will drastically reduce costs.

Has anyone got any experience of building this sort of thing? I'm guessing as the area is quite wet I will have to set up some sort of foundations, also in all the guides I have read their wall would be accessed from both sides so the bottles have been cut, as one of my sides would be full of earth I'm hoping I won't need to do this.

I will be doing a drawing of my idea and on one of the dryer days going outside to measure the area.

Any tips, ideas or links welcome.

Also anyone in the Bucks/MK area who either drink a lot of wine/beer or have lots of old coloured vases wanting to donate them to me let me know

[veggiechicken]

I'm not sure what you mean Sammy? Do you mean edging a bed with upended bottles or stacking them on top of each other in some way?

[sammy_roser]

something like this only on a much smaller scale

http://surfinfoco.files.wordpress.co...ottle-wall.jpg

Here is my awesome drawing of it lol!

[Two_Sheds]

the garden which is waterlogged most of the year into a plantable space.

Why?

Is it on a riverbank? Is it really always waterlogged, or does it just linger after rainfall?

[Two_Sheds]

something like this only on a much smaller scale

Depending on HOW wet your garden is, you could get away with a lower raised bed, like I did here

That's the simplest method of a glass bottle raised bed: it takes 4 bottles per 12" ~ that's a lot of work, and even more work once I was ordered to remove them all

[sammy_roser]

Its very heavy clay soil that stays water logged until we have heat and no rain for a couple of weeks. This year its had standing water the whole year. I went back there in March to pull up the weeds and almost my welly went into the mud. I've spent years trying to improve the soil closer to the house but it still gets standing water during the worst of it.

The picture I drew was not to scale, I was just trying to picture it. I would want it to be around 60cm high (60cm may even be too high, I need to get some measurements done to get a real plan drawn up). I know it would be a lot of work but I think it will look fantastic and love the idea of building a wall from recycled materials.

[Dusty Rhodes]

I think the mosaic effect with the coloured bottles is quite attractive. Remember two things:

1. If one side is filled with soil, the light won't shine through cutting down on the sparkly attractiveness.

2. If water seeps into the open end of the bottles and freezes, they might crack. Trying to cut them out to do a repair would be a real bear.

I worked on a hippie house years ago that had bottles, tiles, and nichos incorporated in parts of the outside wall. It was quite whimsical and great fun!

[sammy_roser]

Yep I know it won't be really sparkly but think the overall effect will still be worth it.

I'm not sure if there is anything I could do to minimise the risk of cracking. I'm just hoping that if they don't completly fill with water then freezing won't cause the glass to crack.

[DuncanM]

Hi Sammy, two suggestions. With the heavy clay, have you thought about hiring an auger? They will drill small holes through the clay cap, back fill with sand and grass on top, no-one would ever onow they are there and they allow the water to drain through the clay. I did it for my dad and 18ft down (manual auger with 3x6ft pieces) on numerous holes only 2inches in diameter but they changed his garden from waterlogged to much, much better. As good as it is to improve the soil near the surface it won't usually penetrate the clay cap fully - hence the use of an auger. I don't know much they are to rent, manual one must only be a few quid, but an automatic one a bit more. Worth every penny IMO.

2nd suggestion is if you do go ahead with your wall. I don't know the cost of them but you could use a fibre optic light source in each bottle embedded in the concrete to illuminate the ends, making it look amazing and a real feature at night.

[Bigmallly]

If you are insistant on a bottled wall why not put the bottles vertical as below:

[sammy_roser]

Thanks for the tip Duncan, I will look into the costs but if it's not a small fortune I may very well get that done.

And bigmally I don't personally like the way it looks with the bottles vertical.

[veggiechicken]

This looks interesting Sammy Building a glass bottle wall. to give you an idea of how many bottles you'd need. I've seen photos of walls constructed from a double thickness of bottles, with the necks pointing into the centre of the wall and overlapping each other. This would avoid the risk of knocking the necks off the bottles when you were working in the raised bed but would need twice as many bottles! Are you a heavy drinker

[lettucegrow!]

something like this only on a much smaller scale

http://surfinfoco.files.wordpress.co...ottle-wall.jpg

Here is my awesome drawing of it lol!

Love this idea! and I've used bottles to egde a border Twosheds, very like the one you did. We're very is very partial to the odd drop of wine in our house Sammy roser and would be happy to save them but is Stevenage too far?

[sammy_roser]

Hmmm Stevenage is an hour away, I could make the trip if it was for quite a lot of bottles! Guess it depends on how much you drink in 6 months Thank you for offering

And sadly VC I can't drink at the moment! Have got some health issues that have sprung up this year and am drinking hardly any at all, before I could of gotten through a fair few bottles in the time. Of course it doesn't only have to be wine bottles, vases which are quite thick, jars, sauce bottles, I really want a wide range of colours and sizes.

Oh thanks for that link VC. Doesn't the chicken coop look fab?

[veggiechicken]

Are you sure you want a daily reminder of what you're missing? Truly sorry about that.
Do you know anyone who runs a pub or restaurant? When we were winemakers we used to collect all the empties from a friend with a restaurant (before the days of easy recycling). Or you could loiter around the waste collection points in supermarkets and waylay anyone bringing bottles. Or, ask on Freecycle.