Recently we fell down the deep hole of a Pinterest trap of seeing all these Bucket Gardens. As with everything that I see on Pinterest, I instantly thought I could do that, and my husband can build it! Let’s give a little background for the story – I do not have a garden, and I have been married for 21 years and have not seen my husband build anything. I wanted to share our journey in creating our bucket garden.
My hubby found these plans at http://www.georgeandjones.com/container-garden-stand/2016/3/26/container-garden-stand. I highly recommend these plans as they are newbie-friendly and easy to follow! The final product measures out to be 55″ wide x 27″ deep. We purchased all our supplies at our local Lowe’s for $60. This price included our 9-8′ x 2″ x 4″ boards, 8-5 gallon buckets, deck screws, and a small container of stain. You will need tools that can cut wood. We did not have that expense as I have purchased man tools for my hubby for Christmas. Lucky for us, he never used them, and all the blades were completely new and in the package!
It took about 2 hours (I said we were new at this homesteading / building thing with our bare hand’s idea) to build the bucket garden. My husband made it, and it looked good! At this time, we took 30 minutes to look at, pat ourselves on the back, and talk about all the things we could now build. Now, if that happens, I’ll blog that as well! We decided to create another one. Surprise, we made two!
At this moment, I had two beautifully crafted bucket gardens. I stained them to preserve the life of the structure and to make it look fancy. I choose a Thompsons Water Seal Stain in the smallest container possible. I had NEVER stained anything before and used a paintbrush that said it for staining. Once again, we took 30 minutes to look at it, pat ourselves on the back, and talk about all the things we were now going to start staining. I intended to spray paint the buckets so that they would look farmhouse rustic, and that awful blue color would not show. However, I live in Texas, and it took me 2 hours to stain both of them (I’m new at this!), and it’s hot. I don’t like to sweat and decided blue is my favorite color.
Once you are to this stage, you are in deep! Now to put the water drainage holes in the buckets. The directions want you to drill them in the bottom. We ended up putting ours on the sides about one inch up from the bottom. My husband put about six holes in each bucket. We choose to put them on the side to retain a little moisture for the plants. To fill the buckets, we started with 2-3 inches of rock at the bottom of each bucket. We purchased our stones from Lowes and just got the large marble rocks for $4.98 a bag. https://www.lowes.com/pd/Kolor-Scape-0-4-cu-ft-Gray-Marble-Chips/3082879 To do our 16 buckets it took about four bags. Then the soil, if you research this bucket garden soil on the internet, it shows how to properly mix up the concoction of different ingredients to form the right conditions for your plants. Once again, this is too difficult for us; we purchased from Lowes the Miracle-Gro Raised Bed Soil for $8.98 a bag. https://www.lowes.com/pd/Miracle-Gro-1-5-cu-ft-Organic-Raised-Bed-Soil/1000180335 For our 16 buckets, it took about seven bags. Disclaimer, this is once again from a newbie perspective, and this iswhat we chose to get and are no way telling you this is the correct way to do this.
We are doing his and her gardens. In all honesty, because we still teenagers at heart, it is his versus her’s garden challenge. We each took a raised garden structure and planted whatever we wanted. At the end of 60 days, we will see who is the garden master. Dan planted in his tomatoes, green peppers, yellow peppers, and red peppers. I planted in mine green peppers, yellow pepper, red pepper, lettuce, and pumpkin. I have a few open slots, and I am thinking about getting blackberry bushes. What are your thoughts? Let us know if you tried and how it turned out! Follow us on Instagram where we will post garden updates!
