Planting By Cuisine
MATERIALS
- ½ Steel Galvanized Pipe (comes in precut lengths, pre-threaded in 1-ft increments): • (2) 3-ft pieces • (2) 5-ft pieces • (4) 4-inch pieces
- ½ Steel Galvanized Iron Fittings: • (4) 90-Degree FPT x MPT Street Elbows (FPT=Female Pipe Thread, M=Male Pipe Thread) • (4) Tees
- 4 – 8ft 1x6 Pieces of Premium Grain, Weather Shield (Pressure Treated) Lumber: • Hint: You can have the wood cut in-store. Lay out the wood and connect your pipe pieces for an accurate board length measurement. Remember that 2 sides of your board rectangle will sit INSIDE the other two sides of your board rectangle when measuring!
- Vegetables: • Onions (bare root bundles of seedlings) • Eggplant (actual plant/transplants) • Tomatoes (actual plant/transplants) • Peppers (actual plant/transplants)
DIRECTIONS
Take a tee fitting and attach it to a 4-inch pipe piece, at the bottom of the tee. Repeat 3 more times with the other pieces.
Attach 1 90-degree elbow to each tee piece, on either side at the top of the tee. Repeat.
Take one assembled corner piece and attach a pipe length. Then attach another corner piece to the other side of that pipe. Keep moving around your rectangle attaching one corner piece, one side at a time.
The last pipe piece can be tricky. Screw one end of pipe into the fitting as far as you can. Then line up the other side of the pipe with the last, unattached corner piece. As you screw it in, the other side will loosen, but that’s ok. If both sides of the pipe are just halfway in, your rectangle will be secure!
Place your wooden rectangle pieces inside your pipe rectangle.
Fill bed with fertilized dirt.
HINTS & CLUES
- Planting onions: Use bulbs that are about a pencil’s thickness, plant them 6 inches apart in furrows, which will protect the onions as they grow. Plant the first inch and a half of the onion (where the green and white meet on the onion’s stem). Hint: If you plant the onion too deep, bacteria can grow in the folds at the base of the stalk. Carefully place dirt over roots.
- Planting tomatoes: Use biodegradable Peat Pots for ease of planting. Plant up to the root. It is important to space the plants about 2-3 feet apart so that when you need a trellis for support, there is space.
- Planting eggplant: Use biodegradable Peat Pots for ease of planting. Plant up to the root. It is important to space the plants about 2-3 feet apart so that when you need a trellis for support, there is space. Like tomatoes, eggplant is supposed to be trellised so the fruit doesn’t touch the ground.
