Building an Air Pruning Bed

In the Growing From Seed articles, I mentioned growing seedlings the first growing season in an air pruning bed. I’ve had pretty good success in developing a strong, fibrous root structure the first year by growing seedlings with this method.

This material list is if you wish to build a 2’x8’x 10” deep bed. There’s no requirement to build beds at certain sizes, so if you have wood available, you could make a bed of just about any dimension.

Materials

3x 2x10x8 

1x 2x4x8

Hardware cloth (at least 24”x 8’)

Cap:   6x  2x4x8’

Poultry netting

Cut 2x 2’ sections from a 2×10

Connect the four 2×10 pieces into a 2 foot x 8 foot box.

Cut one of the 2x4s into four 2’ sections – we are using scrap 4×4 for our current bed we are building.

Connect these four 2’ 2x4s to the bottom of the 2’x8’ box, these function as support for the hardware cloth at the bottom of the bed.

Cut the hardware cloth to length to fit in the bottom of the box

To construct the cap:

Cut two 8’ 2x4s into eight 2’ sections

Build two 2×8 boxes

Attach 2’ leg to each corner

Attach poultry netting to sides of cap

Attach poultry netting to top of cap.

Fill bed with planting mix

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