Plastic Pool Garden Ideas, Raised Beds and More Donna Larson, February 21, 2024February 20, 2024 Perhaps you’re on limited space or funds to start your backyard garden. Maybe you’d like to test out your gardening skills before scaling up. Whatever your reason, we have some pretty creative plastic pool garden ideas for you. Creative Plastic Pool Garden Ideas Raised Beds Grow Bag Container Worm Farm Swamp Water Aquaponics Why Make a Kiddie Pool Garden 1. Above all, small plastic pools are incredibly inexpensive, which makes using them a great way to start a garden. Alternatively, the cost of a new raised bed can range anywhere from $50 to hundreds of dollars, depending on the materials you choose. 2. Hard plastic kiddie pools are easy to find, as they’re available at almost every big box store during the Spring. Not only that, but you may have old plastic pools lying around the homestead just waiting for new life. 3. They’re easy to handle and modifying them for planting is quick. You can get that instant gratification when the gardening bug bites you by using kiddie pools. 4. Lastly, renters can create a temporary raised bed garden that is simple to remove if needed. They can even use these tiny backyard pools on the back porch or decking if landlords won’t allow a patch of ground to be torn up for gardening. Raised Beds Obviously, raised beds make the most sense when it comes to plastic pool garden ideas. You can easily grow many vegetables in your kiddie pool. Take a look at what Never Free Farm created (above) with one of these pools. It fits right in with their container garden space in their urban farm. This is a wonderful use of space in my opinion. How to Make a Raised Container Garden with a Kiddie Pool Obviously, the easiest thing to do is to turn your old kiddie pool into a raised bed. To do this, you’ll need: small kiddie pool a drill soil plants / seeds That’s it. Simply drill several holes in the bottom of the pool, fill it with soil, and plant. I recommend using a 1/4″ drill bit to create drainage holes in your new garden box. Add a small hole roughly every eight to twelve inches along the bottom of the pool in a grid pattern. Type of Soil to Use in Your Raised Bed There are so many types of bagged soil on the market today. I would start with a raised bed soil. Then add in garden soil (with a little peat moss), and a small layer of compost on top. This should give your plants a good start at life. You may find that the garden soil is rather woody, or heavy in wood chips. That’s okay. They will probably decompose some through the growing season, which will result in a reduced soil level in the pool planter. This is just fine, as you can easily add more compost before the next planting resulting in adding nutrients back to the soil. What Plants are Good for This Kind of Container Gardening? The best plants to add into your garden planter will be shallow-rooted vegetables. The type of plant that isn’t such a heavy feeder and has a smaller root system, such as a strawberry plant, would be a great idea. Creating a small herb garden out of the pool would be nice too, but don’t try to include plants with long roots like tomato plants. Leafy greens like swiss chard, mustard greens, and lettuces are all good choices for your plastic swimming pool garden. Caring for Your Planter This project makes for a pretty low maintenance planter. You will need to occasionally water and feed the soil, but that’s not unlike any other kind of garden. Most of these little pools will come in a bright color. Maybe you like that pop of color, but maybe that’s the turn off for you. It is for me; I have to be honest. A simple fix is to spray paint the pool with Rustoleum before adding the soil. You only need to paint the top and the outside. The part the soil covers will not need to be painted, so your veggies can remain in a nontoxic environment. Not only will this give you a creative personal touch in the project, it’ll protect the plastic pool from the sunlight. Weeding You may find the occasional weed pop up on the surface of your new planters, but you should be able to easily pluck them out when caught early. Watering Watering your little pool garden will need to be done more than an in ground garden, but less than your typical container garden of small pots. The finger test is always best. Stick your finger in the soil, and if it’s dry underneath, add water. If it’s moist, you’re plants are probably happy. Larger pools will generally dry out more slowly than smaller pools, therefore you’ll have to pay more attention to the smaller sized options. You can add mulch over the top soil layer of your garden pool to help with water retention when experiencing the worst of the summer heat. Layout You are free to layout the plants in your pool garden however you’d like. You can pick up several of these small pools at your local hardware store, and create an entire raised bed system with walkways of pebbles or pine needles. Get creative, and have fun with your new garden space. Below, you’ll find a beautiful blank slate at Never Free Farm‘s backyard container garden. Imagine the possibilities. Other Plastic Pool Garden Ideas In contrast, try these other plastic pool garden ideas on your homestead: 1. Fill it with grow bags. If you add several grow bags to the pool, you can plant in the grow bags, and then just keep a reasonable water level of an inch or two in the pool. The bags will wick away the water to keep the soil moist for the plant. This uses the pool as a large saucer for your bags, so don’t drill holes in the bottom like you would for a raised bed. 2. Make a worm farm. You could create a small worm farm to add worm castings to your existing garden. To do this, I’d not drill holes in the bottom, and I’d probably use some kind of lid for the pool. Perhaps a second pool on top. You could add lots of top soil and compost to start the worm farm, and then continuously feed them kitchen scraps. Remove a handful of soil that they produce every now and then, and place it at the base of your heavy-feeding plants in the garden. In full disclosure, I haven’t done this, but I think it could work, especially in a temperate climate unlike my own. Let me know if you’ve done this in the comments below. 4. Brew some swamp water. Typically, we’re using a barrel for this, but not everyone wants a large barrel of smelly swamp water sitting around. This would make a great use out of an old, small backyard pool. Just throw in any kind of organic matter, garden scraps or chicken poo for example, and cover it with water. The only downside to using the pool this way, is that you’ll need a lid to keep out mosquitos. Again, maybe you could use a second pool, inverted so they make a clam shell. 5. Try out aquaponics. A small aquaponics system of guppies and shallow rooted plants would be super cool for kids to learn about symbiotic relationships in the garden. You could use a small fish bubbler from a bait and tackle store to aerate the water for the fish. You may want to sink the the pool, making it a tiny in-ground pool to help regulate the water temperature. 6. Make a duck pond Lots of homesteaders are adding ducks to their growing spaces, specifically their orchards. Giving them a little kiddie pool is probably the fastest way to make ducks happy. This video at B-Rad gives an entire breakdown of how they built this duck pond for their small homestead. Go give them a follow while you’re there, they’re doing some cool stuff. If you have young ducklings, make sure that you give them a ramp to get in and out of the pool on their own. 7. Add a Water Feature to Your Garden You can design a focal point in your garden with a water feature. Use the pool to make a pond with a small fountain in the center of your growing space. This would be especially fun if you have kids in the garden with you. Summarizing Plastic Pool Garden Ideas Whether you’d like a fast and inexpensive way to create garden beds or you’d like to get super creative with old materials on the homestead, we hope that you’ve been inspired to try something new this summer. Let us know if you’re going to use any of these plastic pool garden ideas on your homestead. Happy growing! Donna @ Hazel Belle Farm Gardening Homesteading