I now have molds ready-to-go here: manabouttools.com/product-category/abs-plastic-molds/

Cracked me up when you censored Macy's backside, lol. Thanks for the updates to the concrete planter boxes. Nice to see they've faired very well out in the weather.

Pixelated cat donut for a family friendly environment! 😂 (2:42)

Bro blurred out the cats butt so there would be no cracks in this video. 😂

I nerded out on this so hard. I wish you were my neighbor.

I appreciate the effort you've put into experimentation, testing, and documentation of these concrete raised beds. High quality content!

Love this design. Cool that u followed up to show how these are holding up. Thanks for sharing all of this.

I made well over 100 of these. Love them! They are about a year and a half. Holding up well. Been through one tough winter, no problems.

How am I just seeing this? So cool and inexpensive.

Well I came to revisit this Big garden box project, then my recommendation YT list came up. Oh boy the number of channels that imitated this. "Often imitated, never duplicated”.

I made 120 of these at the start of Covid. Took me a year. Then we decided to sell our house. Seeing how well these have held up in the PNW, I’m probably going to start making them again for my new house.

I love follow up videos like these. People build so much crap on you tube. It's nice to see what builds can last for the long haul.

At 4:53 the crack could actually be caused by the wire re-enforcement. If any water gets to the metal it will corrode, expand and split the concrete. A very interesting follow up. All the best.

I built 32 of these a few years back, vermiculite and steel reinforcement. I remember I played a bit with some additives to the concrete, for colour and plasticity, and well as microfibers because I had some. They came out very smooth. These have been holding extremely well (they're double storeys tall beds, actually veggie planters). I had built 2 molds if I remember well, so it took a little while to complete, but absolutely no regret. The pine I used for the molds gave some nice wood like texture to my panels, but one could consider some other decoration for the outside (like a PU mold of some slate like material for instance)... variations are plenty with a bit of imagination. Your videos were a great inspiration, thank you!

As an electrician, I learned to always wrap something around pvc pipe coming out of a concrete slab to prevent cracking the concrete. We normally use rolled foam padding. Might be best to remove the PVC after casting, since the walls are relatively thin.

Thank you sir for an excellent update on these panels. I can't believe it has been four years since I watched the first episode of you making these panels. They have done very well and I suspect they will last at least another five years. Take care and have a great weekend.

2:28 WE GOT A KITTY CAT!!!

I made 4 - 4'x8' frames using your ideas and they are holding up very well after two - three years of service. Three were cast with a basic Quikrete mix and one I tried using a Portland/Perlite blend. I chose to continue with the Quikrete based on price and durability, not to mention my poor concrete skills and the tendency for the Perlite to rise to the top (inside of the panel) during air bubble eradication. One 2"x12" panel takes 1 - 80# bag of Quikrete, so there's really no measuring which makes it "easy". Even I can do it! 😄 It's actually quite therapeutic casting the panels, and a good workout carrying them around. It'll make you strong! I had planned on making more this year to replace my failing wood frames, but some health issues killed my Spring/Summer, so there's next year! Thanks for sharing your builds and all of the trials and variations you did with them. I wondered about doing a vertical stress test, but I guess most of the forces would be outward to the panel and not edgewise. Keep on casting, gardening, (rinse and repeat)!

We stacked ours two high, normal sakrete mix. Bought some galvanized troughs, made a few wood boxes and wood with galvanized panel boxes. Hands down the concrete bed was the best. Holds moisture better and insulates from the sun. The other beds kept drying out.

Five years has passed already? Holy crap! How fast the time is moving..

My wife and I were just talking about your panels and wondering how they held up. We're both Disabled Veterans and I'm 100% disabled with broken neck, back, sternum, clavicles, and ribs. We use gardening as our physical therapy, so we have to elevate the work. We built a foamcrete generator and will be doing experiments of our own, but with your update, it will help us narrow down the list. Thanks for your work and documentation.

I remember watching your first video and thinking how cool it was and gave it a shot. I did such a laughably terrible job I should have filmed it just so people could make fun of it. I'm gonna give it another shot at some point

Appreciate all the information in these raised bed videos!

Awesome to see a return to these Kent - the update is very much appreciated, thanks!

Thanks for the update. I have had issues with ready mix crumbling. Over the years I have come to believe that the ready mix concrete available in our area is old stock or cutting corners by limiting the amount of portland cement in their mix. Either way I have corrected my crumbling issue with the addition of one shovel of portland cement to every bag of ready mix I use. Our front steps which I used this fix on are showing almost no wear even after 15 years of daily use. However I used the ready mix straight from the bag in the posts that I poured 10 years ago for our covered patio and they are crumbling away. I did notice blooming & scaling first before the spalling. It could have been a bad mix by me or old stock from the store. So far everything I have added the fresh portland cement to has held up extremely well.

Loved the original series. Glad to see this update and happy they're holding up so well.

Thanks very much for the update, they have held up well. Longer than the treated pine here in Australia plus no chemicals to worry about 👍

I made twenty 48” x 2.5” x 12” panels about 4 years ago. I used the decorative inset, QuickCrete, Fibers and imbedded CPVC pins. They are all still holding up well.

Love the followup on this! Excellent work!

Beautiful results. Thank you for sharing.

Thank you for the updates to the concrete planters and for sharing.

Thanks for the updates!!!!

So glad you made a follow up after a long time! You're great!

Thank you for the update. Nice to see following and progress. We just moved and I'm looking forward to trying this style next Spring

These garden boxes are lovely. I am so glad that KZfaq popped this video into my feed. I am now subscribed. Looking forward to learning more and adding these to my garden area.

Well done MaT.

Excellent sir!

Great job

Excellent!

This seem like a good way to make garden beds, though one concern would be how they affect the plants in summertime because of the heat. Does it cause water to evaporate more quickly, or make the ground too hot close to the walls? What are your notes on that? I would maybe consider painting them white to be safe.

I had just put in my wooden beds when you posted your first video and have followed along ever since. Now its time for me to do a renovation and your beds are still going strong. looks like my material selection will be changing. I like the removable pin from the economical box, but will probably make mine in the CSA style with a reinforcement to get as much longevity out of them as possible. additionally the ability to mix by weight in a 5 gallon bucket takes a lot of the guess work out of it. Thanks for putting this together its a very helpful addition to the series.

If I were younger, this would be the best way to build raised beds.

Glad to see this update, I’ve got 30 in the garden now … more to come.

I have built your garden boxes version II, I like how they make my gardening so much easier and focused. Thanks for the time and effort you have put into these plans. Speaking on the durability side of the concrete panels. The alignment of the corners should be plumb and level for the rebar pins. A little twist in the fit and the corners can break out. In my excitement to get the first 6 panels pinned in place, the rebar put too much strain on the corners and they broke away. After glueing the corners (PL premium construct adhesive) back together, levelling corners and using a smaller 3/8" smooth pin. the panels have performed great. The concrete is standing up to the test of time. Using the panels for Three years now and moved twice. 👌

When I watched you make these years ago. I always thought about making a shaker table to get the bubbles out. When I was a kid in school our print shop had one of those shakers to straighten out paper. That is pretty much what I was thinking. While the sawzall tool works being able to shake the entire thing would be better and being able to shake it for several minutes longer as well.

I saw the original video about these and was wondering how they held up over the years. I am definitely going to make some now that we have a house we own instead of renting.

This was a great series! very glad to have you report they are doing so well… I was thinking of a similar design but with a feature that would allow to stack 2 or 3 in height…

Thank you so much for this great innovation. Have tried it myself & the panels still look great after a couple of years. 😀 👍

As a retired senior I admire what you have done. My skills don't include carpentry work, but the rest seems doable even for me.

Thank you so much for sharing...I made an extended version and love😊

2 years ago, I made a concrete garden using your design. I add my own touch to the decorative facing and I can say I am very satisfied with the end result. Definitely was hard work though.

Nice! I may consider this for my winter project. I'm looking for ideas for a better composting bin design. My wood one has lasted 15 years. The last 5 years of that span they have really been deteriorating. This may be a better option then wood and last a lot longer.

Looks like they have held up pretty well so far. I am actually borrowing from your design to make some fence panels. Basically going to use a piece of sheet good (the melamine coated snot wood is looking nice because of the plastic coating) and make a panel that will be 6' long overall and will be 3.5" thick and 12" tall using reinforced concrete. It will take 3X 80 pound bags to fill and I will probably use some 6 gauge goat fence panels for reinforcement in most of the pieces. When it's assembled I am planning to put some polyurethane adhesive between the panels and they will be set in place with a piece of rebar at the joints and when the fence is the full height I will have a piece of all thread on the end so I can drop on a washer and run a nut down to help hold things together. In places where it will be holding back a little bit of materials I will probably use 7/16 rebar to reinforce the panels though and may use a piece of rebar through the panels in the middle as well. The first panels set in place will be dug down at least 6 inches and the points where the rebar will be anchored there will be a hole so that I can pour in a bag of concrete to help anchor the bottom which I think will work out well. I am also thinking about mixing up a couple cups of colored concrete to drop in the bottom of the form just to give the panels a little color and character (Black, Blue, and Green sprinkled a little here and there in each one in a kind of speckled pattern) and since the concrete itself is colored it should stay in place effectively forever though it will probably fade a little bit. I found the melamine coating works very well as I had a small piece and have been using it to make some precast concrete headstones for Halloween and I will probably make a few more to sell as well but the 2 I have made so far have been good. They demold very easily with a light oil coating on the melamine and I could easily use some scrap pieces after I build a couple forms to run around the inside of the form as well but haven't decided quite yet. BTW I can't remember if you stress tested actual concrete panels with reinforcement in them. Mine will be longer but should be pretty strong with the reinforcement wire embedded inside and being 3.5" thick will help. Gonna have to build a little crane to pick each piece up but mainly so the guy helping me do the work and I don't have to kill ourselves lifting them up as they will weigh around 250 pounds each.

I think I actually learned about aircrete from your channel years ago. Didn't even make a garden until this year. And its not even raised beds xD In my area I think I'd make a high concrete dirtcrete. There is a lot of sand and gravel in it. Since these are modular it could be interesting to do things like a built-in oya or leach tubing. Idea being you just insert your water through the wall to water a bed while getting even and slow distribution. Certainly takes away from the easy aspects of doing this though. Anyway it looks like they are holding up very well. Its nice to see an update.

I will say that I've moved away from rectangular concrete beds to circular beds made from aluminum roofing flashing held together with pop rivets. Super easy to make and ~$30 for a 4' diameter bed. You might want to experiment with that to see what you prefer.

Nice content 🌸

These are great! Do you use any sort of footing or rock base? Thanks for the awesome inspiration & the follow up!

Two and a half years ago I bought your plans and made a bunch of raised beds out of CSA concrete. I bought a vibrating motor from Amazon and attached it to my casting table (which I made from scrap pipe. It worked well to really settle and work out air pockets from concrete. I used these panels to make retaining walls up to two panels tall, so they were set end to end for over 10 feet (3 meters). I don't really recommend that because there's not enough lateral support to keep the walls from bowing out. I also have issues with the ends where the CPVC pipe sleeve is cracking out anytime there's a significant lateral stress--and when I have an errant hammer strike pinning it to the ground. I really like them, but after about 60 or so castings, the wooden forms were getting really beat up. I think I may fabricate from metal next time. I really like your design, and I look forward to your posts!

Thanks

Hmmm this makes me want to send the video to my old custom precast boss

Could you do an update on your kitty cats? Is Max still with us?

2 seconds in, no kitty cats yet!

These are Fantastic. Are you using the basic Red bag of Quikrete? Or does it not matter?

Thanks for the update - I remember you made vermiculite panels out of Portland cement, and some out of CSA. Any difference in how those fared?

I have been using styrofoam blended up. extremely lightweight and strong.

I love these panels! I intend to use my 3D printer to make letters to add to the forms. What are your thoughts on a panel 18"x8'? Maybe 3" thick...? I'm not worried about weight so much and I do like to sit on the edge of my 4x8 garden boxes.

I think this is the first time I saw someone censor a cat's 3rd eye🤣🤣🤣...

Hi Kent. I've made three sets of panels so far made out of forms I made out of melamine inspired by you. My latest version I eliminated the holes for dowels or pipe and simply drill the stake holes after about two days of curing while the concrete is still super-green. I sent a message via your website...I'd like to share my version with you.

wow 5 years have past and I never got a round to making these. maybe if you give me 5 more years.

wasnt there one made of csa aircrete? im getting ready to make these exact panels and am making the pranatech foam generator machine.

Those beds are going to still be there for 50 years

I wonder if lime wash coating would improve durability.

Can you show us some two high boxes? I want to fill the bottom panels with gravel, add a liner and add a drain hole to build waterless flower beds. Not sure how I will drill the concrete for the plastic drain tube but I am open to suggestions

I like your video series on these panels design very much, but i do have one question. We want to build a 2' wide, 2' high planter box around our garden, the planter box would run 54' x 23' around the garden. Would a panel say 5' long, 13" wide and 4" thick be sturdy enough to do a 55' run without toppling over?? Weight is not an issue, I'm just more concern about doing a 55' run of panels and it's stability.

Have you tried using fiber reinforced concrete? I love your work by the way.

So, maybe I missed it, but which material has been most resistant? In particular, against string trimming?

The one question , I have is you don't have worry about the lye in the concrete . Your plant growth is not effected and water bleed through is not a problem?????

The blur on the cat's butt cracked me up!!

if you ever get into making the boxes to sell so others can make their own boxes, let me know. im up for mixing the concrete, just not making the box molds myself.

Do you have any suggestions about adding drip? I would like to add the to the inside

Is there an issue with water evaporating excessively through the concrete?

On your 96” extended bed, do you have a cross tie to keep the bed from bulging out?

Did you compact your soils before you placed the panels?

see you again in four more years.

Have you ever thought about doubling or tripling the height of your beds by stacking the sections?

Hi...This has been on my to-do list ever since the first version came out. I'm trying to do a cost comparison between the vermiculite and CSA versions but your formula for the vermiculate has units of just "parts" so it is impossible to come up with a cost without knowing actual volumes required to fill the form. According to Home Depot's online prices and the volume of your recipe, making a CSA box (either 36x36 or 48x24) would cost around $41 each. For the Vermiculite formula, 18 lbs of Vermiculite can be purchases for $65 on Amazon and 94 lbs of Portland cement can be purchased at the Big Box store for $18.67. How much is required for each panel?

I bought your first PDF Plan but never built the form. I was hoping to have a carpenter friend build them for me, but that didn't pan out. I'm thinking about purchasing the ready-to-pour molds. My question is can these be stacked up on top of each other to build a 24 or 32-inch high bed?

@MANaboutTOOLS , you state that the reason you use CSA for the 1.5" panels is because of cracking at the pipe area. Have you considered reducing the size of your pipe? 3/8" PEX in place of the 1/2" PVC should work. That would give you .34" more concrete on either side of the pipe so .68" more concrete total on a 1.5" total width. Since there isn't a lot of pressure on the rods holding these together I would think 1/4" rod would be plenty strong. Do you think that would be sufficiently strong with regular cement and not require CSA?

Please included what your weather extremes are. Vancouver is rather mild weather compared to other parts of N America

2:29 - HAHA! Blurs out obscene cat butt...

That crumbling looks like spalling, possibly from freeze thaw issues?

🙏👏👍💪

In a couple of the shots, I could see what looked like golf tees pushed into the dirt. What are those for?

Just curious, does the concrete boxes have any effect on plant PH or growing?

Has anyone here added decorative touches by putting glass on the “bottom” of the mold so it shows through to the outside when cured? If so how does it hold up?

What are your favorite form design and concrete mix? I built one of the first plywood version and want to create additional forms and pour more panels.

Do you know the weight of your panels?

The censorship on the cat rofl 😼

I've seen these stacked 2x high, but is it possible to stack them 3x or 4x high? It's hard for me to lean over and another foot or two would help immensely. Have you tried stacking them 3x or 4x high?

What climate is this? Do you have freezes over the winter?