Self-watering SIP Sub-irrigated Raised Bed Construction (How to Build)

Hello YouTubers, I'm Elle Graziano from elbow pepper, don't worry, today we're talking about SI p planters and secondary

watering

containers and, in particular, we're looking at how to design and

build

one to use as a

raised

bed behind me. I have a prototype that I've been using it for over the growing seasons and now I've had stellar results with it, this one here is actually

raised

off the ground on four by four posts and it's worked very well, based on the way it I designed this. I'm going to show you how you can adapt the most basic components to

build

ing a brazing bed, but it's going to be

self

-

watering

and I'm going to show you the things you really need to focus on and focus on. pay attention so you can find success and also talk about some things that are not so important, in fact some sites and some tutorials will even give you bad information, so I will help you see how things are going.

To make sure you get the best raised bed with secondary irrigation, why don't we first take a look at the raised bed we are going to build today? I'm going to show you how I built this box. Measures 30 inches. this way and 75 inches this way and the depth of this is 16 and a half inches it has three rows of two by sixes part of this is actually embedded in the ground and you'll see what I did there. I have two overflow drain pipes. which are located on the back of this box, everything below those tubes will hold water in the water reservoir.

This is the fill tube that allows me to put a hose in here and just fill the water chamber to the point. I see some water coming out of those overflow tubes. Okay, are you ready to see how I built this? This is the beginning of my preparation work. You can see the spot I have designated for my first buried and

irrigated

raised bed. I don't have to get up and move very quickly to be able to place the structure that consolidates these fourth plantings into one large one that I think will look a little better and withstand the sun better.

With the old and the new, my site is ready in my application. I had a layer of bricks that I decided to lift up and the base beneath them had already been well compacted and reasonably level, so all I had to do was pull a little more. sand and check my level and I have a nice bedding that the bottom liner of my box will sit on and I don't have to worry about something poking through it so it's time to start putting all my boards in the box are cut off, but now it's time to look at this overflow drain hole.

The overflow tubes will be at the back of the box. What I did was I took into account the board that's going to go next to it and then I took into account where one of these corrugated tubes is going to go for your aeration screen and if you look here, that can give you an idea of ​​where that overflow hole is going to be in relation to this from the very edge. it came in four inches and from the bottom I went up to three and a quarter of my center and then drilled a half inch hole for the pipe for this overflow drain.

Something you need to keep in mind is where the ends of this tube are. are high or low relative to what you measured at the center, it may have gone up three and a quarter inches, but if this end of this tube is bent up, then the water level will obviously be much higher before the water . You can actually come in through that end of that tube and start escaping your SI P, so think about that and make sure these little tubes are straight and they don't need to be that long, so what I'm going to do is just have about a half inch on the outside of the box sticking out which helps you minimize kicks when you pass and you may only have about an inch on the inside that will stick outwards and will be going to the end of one of these tubes corrugated drainage boards for installation, I thought it would be easier to pre-assemble the first row of boards.

I had them on a nice flat surface. I was able to square the corners and screw everything in and then just take the whole box out and put it in place from that point you can check its level in both directions and that doesn't rock or wobble. I have done this and now I will be able to build on this. placing the two additional rows of boards for the sides, here I am, I have now completed all the rows of boards and even started placing these supports on the sides, so I measure the same distance on all the corners and on the long edges.

I'm also putting one in the center and I have a nice 30 degree angle cut there and I think it's imperative to do that not just for a little bit of aesthetics so it doesn't look so plain but that's what keeps these boards from avoiding that they bend and have gaps as they dry due to the treatment process, which helps keep everything that you've squared up nice and square, so this holds everything together really well and to do this, what I did is measured from the corner at the proper distance and then you get your speed square make it nice and snug and just let it be flush from the top and then you can clamp it in place once it's nice and tight then you can proceed to screw everything together and move on to the next.

I thought this might be a good opportunity to talk about some of the building materials you might want to use for your box. The first thing you should think about is what you want the box to be made of and what type of wood, assuming that If you are going to make wood, you could try a composite or something else, but most people will probably go with one of two directions, either using treated wood or something like perhaps cedar or cypress. I personally, for this project, am using treated wood. I don't really feel like spending extra money because I've made a lot of things with boards, built a lot of boxes and that can start adding up pretty quickly.

I think treatment is a decent option, but you definitely need to keep it in mind. certain things about the treatment if you decide to use it, first of all, the treated wood sold to consumers in the US and other countries has also not had arsenic for over a decade, so the formulation has been changed to a copper-based formulation. It's not as big a concern to the consumer as arsenic had been, so you may feel a little better that way. If you want to use treated wood in general, you may find that the dimensional stability is not as good. there, so it can tend to warp, twist, it is difficult to get straight and beautiful boards.

Look very carefully when you choose them at the store and even when you get them home they may not stay that way for long, so I don't recommend purchasing the wood too far in advance before you can do the project for me. I think it's best to leave a short period of time from when you bring the wood home until you are ready. to build you will also find with treated wood that on one side of that wood of those boards many times there are marks things that are stamped there if you pay attention you can incorporate them to the inside of the box so that you're not on the outside edge that you will actually see when the box is complete, so pay attention to that and you will have one that is more pleasing to the eye, more aesthetically pleasing.

At least four inches should be airtight, so what? type of liner you can use, you could use a very thick plastic, it should be at least six mil or more, it's best if you can get something that is designed to be used as a pond liner, that's actually what I did, a very thick PVC Durable and safe for fish. What you are using for this is the pond liner. Let's take a second and I'll show you what I'm doing here to put this in place. It's actually a scrap piece I had left over from another Si P box and it fit really well, didn't have to make a single cut, just dropped it into place, so I used a pointed brick like I'm doing here to help hold the sides up and then I used some staples. and I just stapled it up to the top of the edges, way above where the drain line is going to be, and I made sure to fold it over and leave it tight all the way to the corners, and so I did and my last step I have to integrate it into that drain of overflow, so I very carefully marked where it was and just cut a little slit and slid it over that drain pipe, but in the final stages of incorporating this I just have to do this side again.

Every once in a while I finish stapling the corners and this is now completely in place, of course you may notice that the lining doesn't go all the way to the top. If you have a large enough piece, you can pass it through that way and make it all in one continuous piece, but like I said, this is something I'm just using since I have a piece left over from another project. What I'm going to do is get a less expensive one like a six mil plastic and I'm just going to run it like a nice straight clean edge around the perimeter and that will keep the treated wood separate from the potting mix and that will help those who know crazy chemists who are worried about using treated products. but it will also help the wood separate from the mixture and help it last a little longer and not rot as quickly.

What you absolutely must remember is that all of this must be a continuous uncut rectangle. or a square of lining where the corners are, you will have extra pieces and can fold them. You could have them on the inside so you don't even see the folds like I've done here on this side. show the fold on the outside so it is visible so you can see how it is unfolded. It's like a Chinese takeout box. If you've ever taken one of those apart, they're really just one continuous flat piece and it's all folded up, that's why. nothing comes out and that is what will make your liner completely waterproof until you get to where the overflow drain hole is.

Now let's talk more about this corrugated perforated drain pipe. The ends, if fully open, can easily hold some potting mix. it can start to get in there and it just messes up the system a little bit, so you want to limit them now. I have one here that was on the 30 gallon bag system and I can show you, oh, this is already limited on the end and what I used is a synthetic landscaping fabric and I put some strips of duct tape around it to tie it really tight. It holds up really well, so both ends are capped and the way I'm doing it on this is I'm going to cut a little slit right here and put this in and it's going to line up with that overflow drain tube and then I'll be able to slide this up there and the overflow drain tube will actually go a little bit into this pipe, so it'll be inside one of these aeration chambers, a nice open area that's isolated from the potting mix, allowing just the water flows directly into it, it won't get clogged with stuff, so I'm going to reuse two of these from my 30 gallon containers.

I'll have the one on this side and the one on that side and then along this junction I'll fill in the rest of the area. all my aeration screen is now in place. I was able to use a couple of leftover pieces or scrap pieces along the three new pieces of 10 foot corrugated perforated drain pipe if this looks a little different than other tutorials, photos and videos you've seen. I've seen it online, maybe they show two of these in a big box like this. Well, the problem is that they did it wrong. This is the way you're supposed to do it.

They don't really know what they are doing, so if you don't have a very high percentage of drainage, but instead have most of the mixture in constant contact with completely saturated water, then the system will not work to its full potential because things will get waterlogged too easily and when you have a lot rain will be a problem cloudy days it will rain day after day so the roots will rot and fail but this has just a little bit of space between these, that little bit of space equals in reality to a great absorption potential. As long as you properly place a highly absorbent mixture between all of these spaces, you should not have air between the outside of these pipes.

You want something that's made of peat vermiculite, something like that, in fact, you could probably mix it neat. peat moss and vermiculite only and I stuck them between these right at the bottom all the way to the top and that would create a nice absorbent bed to absorb moisture, but the highest percentage of the surface is actually in contact with the air which is trapped inside these is what will work best in all situations, not only when it comes to drought but also when it comes to heavy rain, so at this point you're probably wondering, "Wait a minute." second, aren't you supposed to put some kind of cloth or something over those drain pipes?

I mean, they have holes, right? What will keep them from getting dirty? Well, you have to think of this as something that's in a container. with potting mix, yes, if you bury them in the ground over the years they will probably fill up with silt, but I have been using these corrugated perforated drainage tubes with nothing wrapped around them to keep the dirt out for years. and when I take one out and open it, I find that basicallyIt's completely empty, it doesn't fill up with all kinds of sediment from what I've seen first hand after years of testing, so I definitely don't bother with that and I don't think it's really such a critical detail that anyone would understand.

In conclusion, There are more important things to worry about late into the night. I was filling the bottom of this box with potting mix and vermiculite mix. Anything specific I want to use at the bottom just doesn't represent. Everything above this point was a bit tight for me internally. This is a thirty inch box and the amount of pipes and rows I had only had about a quarter inch of space between me and them. I think that should be the absolute minimum if I had a couple of extra inches, which probably would have been optimal, but I know this is still going to work because I put those things in there, pressed them down hard, and there's definitely enough surface area to absorb moisture and so that I have seen with peas Yes, sometimes you can have too much moisture if they are not designed correctly, so I think this is really the best way to do it.

I actually had a 10 mil vapor barrier left over for a concrete pour and I didn't have to buy any plastic to put along these edges and this will hold up even longer and even better than that cheap 6 mil stuff. The SI p raised bed will not have any type of plastic cover that would cause me to miss out on all the natural rain that would fall on it, but there are still times when I will want to water it and it is sub-

irrigated

, which means that it is watered from down and this downspout here is what's going to allow me to click the water right into the reservoir and avoid all the potting mix that's on top.

I can use the normal garden hose spigot. up to that and I just let the water funnel directly through here and I have a hole that I drilled directly into one of these tank pipes and this will go right where some tutorials will tell you to cut this at an angle and if that It makes you feel good so of course and do it. I chose to put this in the corner because it looks like it will be a better place to sit after I put this in this hole. In fact, I'm going to put some tape over there to seal this up and keep it more stable and keep the mixture from settling through this opening.

Are you ready to talk about potting mix if P? Okay, let's do it like I'm going to do. To fill the top there are a couple different bags of Miracle Grow, there's a humidity control, but I'm also using the regular kind and then I'm using some bark malts. I also have some extra perlite, so a two cubic foot bag. two cubic foot bag I'm going to use half of this three cubic foot bag of mulch two gallons of perlite this will add a little extra aggregate for aeration the coarse particles in the pine bark mulch also help with aeration and, Of course, they take longer to break down, so you'll find that the shelf life of the mix seems to be a little better than if you were just using pure peat moss and I like the moisture control because it has a little more freshness, but it doesn't.

I want to use it exclusively because we don't need a lot of saturation capabilities in our mix, we really want to focus on aeration so using additional perlite is the way to go and as you put this all together and look at the consistency it is possible I may even decide to add a little more perlite, but this is what I'm going to start with: we'll make a single batch, we'll mix this all up on a tarp and put it in the box and then I'll see how much. I need more to keep filling it. I used half a batch of what I just showed you to finish completing this box.

I'm sure I'm going to mix a little more to finish cutting this off from the rest. By the way, but it looks like it could rain any minute, so I want to show you that this is an old potting mix event If P was in these 30 gallon containers while I was mixing my new mix, I also integrated some of this old stuff into she. Since I don't really believe in throwing away old potting mix, I keep discovering ways to use it and I think this is going to work well, there's a lot of new stuff and some of this older stuff is very well incorporated and Just to show you the consistency of how it's see this, I think it will work pretty well for this season and we'll see as we get into spring and summer, but that's all you need to know for the actual pot. mix you are going to use in one of these.

I mentioned about pine bark and I like to use it because it expands my mix at a much lower cost plus adds a little space like I said and some will tout the benefits of pine. bark as a soil amendment anyway, but don't rely on it too much, use a reasonable amount without overdoing it, otherwise you could break the capillary action that is necessary to absorb water from the bottom of your bed once your bed is ready . The last thing you should definitely pay attention to is fertilization. You need to fertilize this now if you are building it primarily with a Miracle Grow potting mix which already has a synthetic fertilizer built in so you don't have to worry too. a lot about that, you might want to add some dolomitic lime which is made of calcium and magnesium and putting a little bit of that in there will help, but if you're using some non-fertilizer components, if you're supplementing it with a little bit of pine bark.

If you're building this primarily around peat moss, you have to put something in here for your plants to nourish themselves. You don't want to use manure. You don't want to use those disgusting fertilizers you get in the bag at the store. however, you could use some worm castings which work great in containers and would definitely go well in your raised bed Si P. Getting some kind of nice organic fertilizer is a great idea. You could even use some synthetic temporary releases if that's your problem using some type. of Osmocote can give your plants a great benefit, you can simply spread the fertilizer in proper amount and then mix it into the mixture, and that would be enough.

Many people use fertilizer strips if they want to make a strip down to the bottom of the fertilizer. and then bury it under an inch of potting mix, you can do that too but I personally have never messed with that and I have personally always had great results so it is totally up to you, it will work even if you don't create fertilizer strips. Alright, so what can you do to ruin your raised bed with secondary irrigation? I want to cover a few key things that will ensure this fails if you do the following, first and foremost, don't fill it with topsoil unless you don't want to.

For it to work well, do not put all types of thick fertilizer in it. Think of this as a container, a really big container and in containers or pots we use potting mixes so whatever you put in this should be something built around the idea of ​​a pot. mix if you do that you will be successful, it won't turn into a big muddy quagmire, you will get good absorption which will occur as you draw moisture out of the reservoir, but at the same time you will have good pore space. which will ensure that the roots of the plants receive air and do not suffocate or die, the roots will not rot and you will have a very functional raised bed.

The next thing this design will do is 16 and a half inches deep. You could try to design something that's not as deep, something more shallow, but as it gets shallower and shallower, you'll find that the potting mix stays wetter and wetter because the perched water table doesn't actually cover a large area, so which tends to be very, very saturated with water and when you're doing a container with secondary watering that's not really the best way to do it so I recommend 16 and a half inches, that's the way I set up my thirty containers gallons, that's the The way I set up that box that's raised on legs is the way this raised bed is set up and I know that using that basic amount of depth will give me good success.

Another way to mess this up is to not pay attention. for your overflow pipe location, it should be well below the top of your corrugated perforated drain pipes, it should not be above them or to the top of them, if you use the dimensions I showed above, that will work quite well. you're going to retain a lot of water but you're also going to capture some air and you're going to leave a good distance for the soil to drain so that it retains water but doesn't overflow from that overflow. tube, make sure you have it inside one of these reservoir chambers inside one of these pipes, don't just leave it floating on the ground in your mix if that tube just sticks to the mix and there's nothing to stop the particles from the No dirt gets into it, it will clog up quickly and once the overflow tube clogs up, this thing will fill up quickly, it can fill up very quickly with water and you don't want your plants roots to build up an automatic under watering system.

The raised bed is a great way to get started in gardening. It can go a long way toward reducing maintenance during the summer when watering becomes such a chore. It takes a little more work to set it up in advance, but you can do it in a way that's easier. It's still pretty simple and gives you great rewards and this is a long term investment this is not something you'll have to do again next season this will last for years if you do it the right way thanks for taking the time to watch this video, Hopefully, it will have taught you some basic principles in designing one of these that can help you tailor one to your specific requirements and that can ensure that you get maximum success by paying attention to all those critical aspects. details, if you liked this video please give me a thumbs up, subscribe to my channel if you haven't already and be sure to head over to alwa pepper comm where I have all kinds of great information on container potting mix ideas with automatic irrigation and automatic pea irrigation. and all kinds of cool container designs that you may find useful