To give a brief summary, earlier this year, I started an experiment to grow a few vegetables in the top half of an IBC tank. We grew cilantro, onions, lettuce, and watermelon radishes. The goal was to use something that would require no construction, be relatively low cost, be reusable year after year, and able to be stored during winter months. In this post, I would like to share my thoughts on how the experiment went and if I would recommend it to others as a viable option.
First off, this was a really nice, but different form of a raised bed and we will definitely be using these again. Other than cutting the tank and the steel cage, there was no construction and there was an easy installation and removal. With the right soil, the plants grew really well and everything thrived. I believe that the onions probably did the best out of the few items that we grew. So an example of how it worked is that we usually grow about one 100 foot row of onions every year in our garden, but we could fit that entire row inside of one of these IBC tanks. The same could be done with our lettuce, radishes, and turnips.
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Every year we put out a 100X100 ft. garden. Half of our garden consists of the big staple vegetables like beans, corn, potatoes and tomatoes, but by using several of these IBC tanks, we will be able to reduce our garden by about half. As I mentioned, I think that IBC tank beds would be best growing things like onions, radishes, and lettuces. Another great aspect with the IBC tanks is that you can plant the vegetables closer together which can help with weeding. The only thing we will be doing different next year is that we will plant only one type of plant in each of our beds.
I have had several inquiries about where an individual can get an IBC tank. The best place one can look is on Craigslist. I have seen places that sell them for around $40-$50, but you could probably get them cheaper if you buy several. The most important thing is that you make sure they are a food grade tank. Otherwise, you will get one that possibly has had agricultural chemicals in them. We have seen food grade tanks have things like molasses or different types of food oils/enzymes in them. Also, one can get them cheaper sometimes if you clean the tanks out yourself.
Now that our growing season is done, we have started to pack things up for next year. I am really excited because we have some big plans next year for our garden. We plan on greatly expanding the use of IBC tanks and we have just ordered some different heirloom seeds that we are going to try and, in some cases, we are going to try to grow some plants that we have never grown before.
Thanks for reading!