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Have you had challenges trying to grow food directly in the ground in your yard. If your soil is hard clay or is full of roots or rocks, a raised bed garden could be the solution. Learn to build a raised bed stock tank garden in six steps.

When we moved into our new house, we were enchanted with all the garden space. After living in a high density, urban neighborhood for eight years, upgrading from our postage stamp yard was a dream come true. And we were especially excited about a couple of wooden raised bed garden boxes left behind by the previous owners. I thought, “Now my gardening journey begins!”

The following summer, I tilled the soil, and I enhanced it with compost and organic fertilizer. I carefully followed the directions that came with my starts and placed them the appropriate distance apart. I then watered and waited. Much to my dismay, we had little plant growth and very little food production. I believe that, at 9” high, the raised beds were not high enough to provide enough depth for good root formation and the ground beneath was too compact and full of tree roots to allow anything to grow below that 9”. Looking back, a plant with shallower roots, such as lettuce, kale, or scallions might have done very well in our beds, but I was looking to grow a diverse variety of fruits and veggies, and A LOT of them.

Lots of Ways to Make Raised Bed Gardens

So, fast forward a year, COVID hit, and I had much more time on my hands. So, I decided it was time to build a new raised bed garden. I considered a lot of different types of raised beds, but, in the end, I settled on a stock tank garden. Visit my recent post on 10 Reasons to Build a Stock Tank Garden.

I did a lot of research on how to make this garden happen, and I want to share my step-by-step experience with you, to save you all the trial and error I went through. So here it is…

Build Your Stock Tank Garden in Six Easy Steps

1. Research Products and Designs Online.

• Figure out how much garden space you have, so you know what size stock tanks to buy. They come is a small variety of sizes. Typically they are 2’ wide, either 1’ or 2’ tall, and 4’ or 6’ long. We got our stock tanks from Home Depot and we bought the 2’ x 2’ x 6’ Behlen brand tanks.

• Something important to note, which caught me off guard, is that the tanks are shipped, from the manufacturer, nested in stacks of three That, means that if you order three tanks of the same size, they may not all be the exact same width and length. Since two of them had to fit inside of the other ones, they will be an inch or so smaller, all around the perimeter of the tank.

• In general this is not a big deal, until it comes to grouping and laying out the tanks in the garden. You might want to group tanks of the same size together and pay attention to aligning the most visible edges of the tanks.

• Other stores do carry stock tanks, such as Lowes and Farm and Feed Stores, but I liked that Home Depot kept them in stock and could deliver them, since I do not have a truck.

2. Plan Your Layout

• Once you place your tanks and fill them with dirt, you aren’t going to want to move them. I recommend carefully measuring your garden space and then using graph paper to create a dimensionally accurate sketch. You don’t need fancy computer programs to do this. I did it by hand with a mechanical pencil

• When you do this, consider the light and exposure in your garden. Pay attention to water sources and objects like buildings, overhead foliage, and tree limbs that will block light and rain. Consider if nearby trees will drop leaves or pine needles on your garden. And remember, full sun is not always best. We placed our garden to have a variety of lighting condition since plants like peas, beans and lettuce can benefit from some partial sun.

• Also consider the aesthetics of your stock tank garden…

Consider…

…The color of your tanks. You can paint them to create pop of color in the garden. I spray painted ours a vintage robin’s egg blue.

…How your stock tank garden relates to the rest of your yard and your home. For example, you can orient it to be open and inviting to the yard, or you can orient it to be private and intimate. You can make it part of your view, or you can make it into a hidden secret garden. Think about the garden experience you want and lay it out to accomplish that goal.

…The spacing between your tanks. You don’t want them to feel cramped or to be functionally difficult to navigate between, but you also might not want them so spacious you are wasting precious garden space. Functionally I recommend at least 2’ between tanks to make them easy to access and move around.

…Adding trellising to some of the tanks or to a part of all the tanks, both to add visual height, but also to give your plants a structure to grow on. Even a basic trellis material can have a dramatic impact once it is covered with your climbing plants.

…The use of other planters or decorative elements to complement and add character to your stock tank garden. I used small wine barrel style planters in a dark wood tone at the end of each stock tank. I use them to plant decorative flowers and plants that support a healthy vegetable garden.

3. Identify Your Materials

• You might be asking, what else do I need beside the tanks? Well, theoretically you can just buy tanks, drill some holes, and place them somewhere in your garden, but my advice is to consider raising them off the ground for better drainage. To do this requires some planning and additional materials. Here are the materials I used in order of bottom to top.

Landscape Fabric: Use to cover the bare ground across the entire area of your stock tank garden.

Edge stones: Creates a border for your stock tank garden.

Pea gravel: The perfect leveling material for your tanks to rest in.

Leveling blocks: Your tanks will rest on these.

4. Prepare the Garden Area

• Identify the borders of your stock tank garden and mark them off with corner posts and string, so you have straight guide lines where you want them. Then clear the area of grass, plants, and debris, and level the area as much as possible. Admittedly, our garden area was not as level as we would have liked. There were some pretty significant roots peeking out of the ground from an adjacent laurel tree, but that is where the pea gravel comes in.

• Lay down overlapping strips of landscape fabric to cover the entire garden area. We used this one from Amazon.

• Using your string as a guide, create a border of edges tones to make the perimeter of your garden and to secure and conceal the edges of your landscape fabric. We used an interlocking brick style edge stone for our garden, similar to this one: https://www.homedepot.com/p/Mutual-Materials-Edgestone-8-in-x-2-75-in-x-5-in-Red-Concrete-Edging-336-pieces-224-in-ft-pallet-PV070EDGERBM/100350752

• Pour your pea gravel inside your edge stone borders and use rakes or shovels to distribute the gravel into an even and level layer. Ideally it will be three or four inches deep to achieve the depth required for your leveling blocks.

5. Place Your Stock Tanks

• This is where time and finesse comes into play. It takes some trial and error to get it just right. Be patient. Not only are you placing the blocks where you want them in the garden, but you are also leveling them. So you may have to give it a few tries before you get it just right.

• For leveling blocks we used retaining wall blocks. I liked the more finished visual texture of the split-face surface. Retaining wall blocks also come in a wide variety of tones and colors: https://www.homedepot.com/p/4-in-x-11-75-in-x-6-75-in-Pewter-Concrete-Retaining-Wall-Block-81100/100333178

• Next, place your leveling blocks. For 6’ tanks we used three leveling blocks on each long side and one at each short end, for a total of eight blocks per tank. Assuming you want the face of the block to be flush, (or even), with the edge of the tanks, use your layout drawing and the dimension of each tank to identify the location of each block. Nestle the blocks into the pea gravel without pushing it all the way to the ground. You want the leveling blocks floating in the pea gravel so you can adjust as needed to create a level surface for the tank. You will need a long box level to test the level across all your leveling blocks. The longer the better.

• Once the blocks are both individually level and are level with each other, place your tanks on the blocks and test the level of the top of the tanks. Also double check the placement of the blocks. I wanted the block faces flush with the other edge of our tanks. This is the point where you might have to remove the tank to make some adjustments to the blocks to get everything right where you want it to be.

6. Fill Your Stock Tanks

• Drill holes in your tank for drainage. I used this metal step drill bit and drilled around eight to ten holes, distributed evenly across the bottom of each tank. Be aware your leveling blocks beneath so you don’t drill into them and damage your drill bit.

• Place filler in the bottom of your tanks to provide a space for drainage. It will cost a pretty penny to use only gravel filler with such a large container, so I used plastic bottles and the lids to fill in about nine inches. I then filled in the gaps with pea gravel. It saves money and you can feel good for re-purposing plastic bottles.

• Cover your filler with a layer of landscape fabric to separate the filler from the soil, then begin filling your tanks with soil and a nutrient rich compost blend.

• Finally add your trellises and other decorative planters and features, if desired, and start planting!

I hope all this information has been helpful. I know there are endless ways to design and install a stock tank garden and I would love to hear your questions and ideas. Please comment below with how you created the perfect stock tank garden, or with lessons learned that can help other readers.