RMB

Here's how one gardener did it. Maybe there's enough detail in the picture to see how he fastened them:

http://i138.photobucket.com/albums/q241/vance70/garden/Picture2172.jpg

It's from this thread. There are more picture links in the thread though I don't know if they include the shutters.

Vinyl is probably not a good material to use in the garden, especially for food. It's carcinogenic, causes liver and other organ damage, and is toxic to inhale and when absorbed orally (by drinking or eating.) It also leaches toxins into the groundwater. Of all the things we suspect might cause cancer, vinyl is one of the few that's actually been found to do so. (It's the small associated with "new car smell".)

I did a brief google search on "vinyl toxicity" and came up with a lot of info. Here's just one sample: vinyl toxicity

Too bad, because it's a creative idea.

In one of my gardens, all beds were made with castoff aluminum shutters. I staked them with castoff iron plumbing pipes, about one stake every 4 ft. One of the beds has also old shower doors.

a) when the beds freeze in winter, they push the aluminum out, so your beds become bigger over time (and your paths smaller). There is one point where I can no longer get through with the wheelbarrow. The shower doors (glass) are actually sturdy enough that their motion has been minimal.

b) the stakes are a nuisance when operating the hose. Suggest to stake them on the inside of the beds, with the stake top slightly below the top of the shutter. I used steel wire to tie them together.

c) I did not bury the bottom of the shutter deep enough, and now I am getting grass coming in from all over.

Shutters are fine otherwise, and you can not beat the price.

i have this old hard plastic jon boat i was thinking of using as a raised bed. it has a huge crack in the bottom of it. is that a bad idea?

fostina, you may want to do the research. The document above by egganddart doesn't cover the issue of the transfer of vinyl chloride into the plant, which then transfers into the food, when the transfers into humans. It does mention other toxic transfers which are noteworthy. My "guess" is that it would not be a problem. Only a guess. However, if using your jon boat is a problem then I'm thinking some container gardeners may want to take note..

wow, pvc pipe irrigation systems, garden hoses all seem bad.

Fostina, bad in what way?, can you elaborate? i.e. A recent newscast on TV mentioned drinking water out of garden hoses is not something that you'd want to do. They showed by a chemical analysis that the vinyl chloride in a sun heated garden hose containing water was leach out into the water in the hose. So the water in the hose was not something that you would not want to drink. What came to mind when I saw this newscast was all of the schedule 40 PVC piple in use today for supplying underground water into homes. Well, turns out that not all plastics are equivalent. Some have stabilizers that prevent the above from happening. Also, the PVC is underground and not exposed to sunlight. So these are apples to oranges to grapes comparisons.

YOUR specific question is does the material in your old plastic hard jon boat get absorbed into the plant material then transfer to the vegetables then into you. Did you find anything on this different case? If so, can you post your references? .. because folks who do container gardening may want to know.

When ever I have turned on a garden hose to get a drink of water and found the water coming out to be hot I always waited until the hot water was flushed out to take a drink. Would the new water rushing though the hose have time to pick up vinyl chloride?

no i found nothing specific, im not even sure what my boat is made of. but i googled Vinyl chloride gardening, and it wasn't very encouraging. again nothing specific.

SnappyBob, in the newscast experiment they had left the garden hose containing water in the sun for about 2 to 4 hours. They then tested the hot water and came up with the results showing vinyl chloride in the water. I specifically remember thinking, now WHO drinks hot water from a garden hose! Everyone does as you have indicated. .. They let it run a while. The other thing that they mentioned was that not all garden hoses tested had a problem. The one which did happened to be one that was manufactured overseas, which you can probably guess where? Anyway, the newscast was somewhat sensationalistic. I did not get the impression that drinking water out of a garden hose was, all things considered, a BAD practice.

Even though I posted the PVC info above, I should say that we're surrounded by toxic plastics and synthetics all the time and everywhere. Sorry to be gloomy, but anyone who drinks from plastic containers, or has a laminate floor, synthetic countertop, carpeting, plywood or MDF furniture, a new car... the list goes on and on. Even latex paint dry on your wall, they're now saying, offgasses for years, I think it is. (I've just discovered Mythic paint at $45 a gallon, no offgassing, no carcinogens, good paint.) It drives you crazy if you worry about it too much (I have!) You can't escape it, really. All you can do is avoid the unnecessary toxins, and vinyl in your food garden is probably one of those things.

And to think that just today I ate arugula that had grown in an old racing tire, without worrying about anything leaching into it. I know gardeners who have used kiddie pools to grow veggies (with the bottoms cut out), and I see online many raised bed kits made of pvc and vinyl and other materials that might be suspect, according to some of you. Honestly, if I think I can get the shutter bed to look good and work for me I will really not give it one more thought. And I might even drink out of the garden hose if I get thirsty while I am working.

Hello, I am new to gardening and given the times we’re in I’d like to start with an organic vegetable garden. We are getting new metal hurricane shutters and I was wondering if It‘s safe to repurpose the old metal shutters to make my raised plant beds? Not sure what kind of metal they are but the don’t rust so I think it’s aluminum.