My husband and I planted marigolds and herbs (dill, parsley and basil) in the 2 holes of each cinder block surrounding our small garden plots. This would be especially good for peppermint and catnip that tend to spread all over.
By Ellen from Ware, MA
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Wow - there's somebody else like me out there! I do the exact same thing. Check out my gardens.
I also do the same with my raised bed garden & plant onions in the holes in the blocks. I planted sweet potatoes in the holes last year, guess what? They got so large I had a hard time digging them out of the hole.
I put in a garden last year with two levels of cinderblocks. I live in a rocky area of Central Texas. This garden was so productive and I loved planting herbs and flowers in the small "containers" around the outside.
Another benefit for this type of garden - no tilling so in this extra wet spring, my garden has already been planted with the early crops. Love it.
This picture was taken the last week of April.
This is great, I might do this along the fence to keep the weeds down, they seem to grow there and we can plant little flowers in the holes...great idea!
I put a bunch of these cinderblocks in a circle and put an old metal tray in the middle and then surrounded it with rocks, since I like rocks, and then put an old oven grate or rack over it, so now it is a fire pit.
Robyn
I have done this off and on for years. My dog loves garlic, and he can't dig up the garlic or other plants that I plant this way. He can get his mouth in the block, but can't open it to pull the plant out! It stops evasive herbs from spreading!
I have surrounded some of my wood raised beds with blocks and it gives extra support to those beds if they are trying to pull apart - helping them to last several years longer.
You do need to water them more often however, as the concrete is porous and absorbs the water.
Cindercrete blocks use fly ash in the manufacturing process. It is very toxic, do not plant edible plants in them!
Garden stores now carry plastic pots that fit inside these cinderblocks. That would be a good idea to avoid toxicity from the bricks.
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