concrete raised beds

[Farmer Jon]

Pictures taken this spring before planting. The steel water tanks worked out great. This is the second year for them. The bottoms are rusted out so they are no good for anything but this.
The concrete feed bunks are left over from when we had cattle here and from when we updated our cattle handling facility on the other place. They worked out fairly well. I was worried that dirt would plug the cracks and not allow water to drain. I have the opposite problem. I have to go back and dig the dirt out of every seam and seal it somehow. Water runs right through. I think it has harmed my yeald on the tomatoes. As a matter fact i know it has. I tried to fill the cracks with expansion foam but didn't work very well. On the side it worked but the bottom it just fell out.

[Nate]

the biggest thing I would be worried about with the concrete troughs is the moisture in the soil when the freeze hits and it cracks everything to boo boo and the troughs become useless?

i love the water tank idea, because like you said "they are not good for anything else".

[Flyin6]

What time of year, and what state is that Jon?

Looks pretty early...Last frost come and gone?

[Farmer Jon]

This was in may. In Nebraska.

If they freeze and break then so be it. I do have a quite a bit of work into them but I used a pay loader to move and fill them. Not a ton of manual labor. Its an experiment. The year is not over yet. So far so good. Just need a little modification that I stated I the previous comment.

[Nate]

I understand that there is not a whole lot of manual labor invested so far, but I guess in my recommendation I would not take for granted that they have been banged around per sey and try to make them last as long as possible?

[TexasRedNeck]

Pretty neat idea, Jon.

[Farmer Jon]

We ended up with a whole pile that broke when I moved them. These are more heavy duty but time will tell. I hope it works out I want to put in another line next spring. I just have the down hill end plugged with a board. Im thinkng I will have to drill a drain hole once I get the cracks sealed up.