In an earlier post I made a suggestion about what to do with the IBC tote scrap after cutting them up for aquaponics. The suggestion was to use it for making wicking beds. Below you can find the picture of my wicking bed with the tote scrap.
A wicking bed is essentially 24″ or less deep. Half the depth is weeping tile and rock, the top half is your favorite potting soil mix. As you can see from the picture I have a pipe running down to the bottom half below the dirt. This is so you can water into the bottom. The bottom holds water and it “wicks” to the surface for your plants.
As a result you water once a week and you use significantly less water because you don’t loose as much to evaporation.
Since this was done with IBC Tote scrap the cage was sticking up and a bit sharp so I ran some PVC around the outside top and just drilled holes for the cage to embed in the PVC for safety. Pretty simple and I really didn’t spend much.
I think for 2 beds I spent around $100. Which is pretty good compared to building them out of wood for about $600 each.
Since the scrap I had was not 24″ deep I did have to dig down about 12″, but that didn’t take much. Add in some 6 mil plastic to hold in the water and we were good to go.
My Finished Wicking Bed made from the scraps of IBC Tote I had left over.
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