Bag to planting bed, 1, 2, 3!

Recycling your old seed bags into sturdy planting containers is as easy as 1, 2, 3!

My husband told me some ultra-large seed bags would not be returned to the company for recycling this year, so I asked for them and it didn’t take me long to think of another use: the sturdy woven nylon containers safely contain 2,500 lbs of soybeans, and have reinforced corners to keep them square – why couldn’t they be planting containers, instant 3x4 foot raised beds?

Daughter-in-law, Abby, was willing to experiment, so we cut one in half and took it to her yard, where we pounded four sturdy stakes into the ground at the corners and then folded the sides down over the stakes, untied and opened the funnel at the bottom. The next day she trimmed off the excess reinforcing tabs we had cut in order to fold the corners, and used up some leftover spray paint to improve the appearance.

She planted veggies in peat-compost, in the beds by the square-foot spacing. See the veggies growing in the photo. The remaining bags are making beds for a day-care, a kindergarten class, a couple of new community gardens and a few other Master Gardeners.

Similar bags are used to ship sugar to big bakeries, potting media to large greenhouses and seed to farmers, etc…. Maybe you can find one free or at a nominal cost?

Bag to planting bed
Left, here is the bag before we changed it to a planting bed.
Right, bag cut and assembled to a planting bed.

Bag to planting bed
Left, we painted the bag for aesthetics.
Right, plants growing in the bag a few weeks later.

Did you find this article useful?