How to build a garden with no money
It's a relatively modern problem, where you, a scrappy solarpunk with no money, want to begin a vegetable garden. The ground you have to work with is either dead as hell or flat out toxic or has no dirt at all. You want to build a raised bed but you have no money and the kits are expensive. There's a lot of ways to go about this, here's what I did: I built a wicker basket.
Step one: assemble your branches.
You want whippy ones at least 4' long, no thicker than two fingers, no thinner than a chopstick. Longer and bendier is better, but also get a bunch of thick stiff ones. I got mine from the Greenway near my lil condo, and from my neighbor's yards.
Protips: Wear gloves, because thorns. Carry clippers discretely, because people get nervous when they see sharp shiny things in your pocket. The branches in the above pic are one load of three, because that's how much I could carry.
Step two: hammer your stakes
(no pic for this part, sorry)
Take the thickest and straightest of your branches, and cut a length you want to be the height of your box plus a couple inches extra. Hammer them into the ground every 18" or so, and at each corner. Every side of your box must have at least three stakes.
Protip: if the ground is really hard, drive a hole ahead of the stick by hammering in a screwdriver.
First weave your biggest branches in and out between the stakes. You can remove any leaves for free compost at this point.
Protip: this is the hardest part, so don't get discouraged! Here is also where you will find out of the stakes are thick enough or hammered in deep enough. Try not to cry if they fall over. Or break.
Now you put in the smaller branches. I found that long vine types like ivy and wild rose can be woven in more than one direction, so if you need to fill in some gaps you can get creative.
Protip: tamp down the walls you've made every so often do they stay nice and dense. They need to be closely woven enough to hold dirt later.
Step five: smaller, different weaving
By now you have gotten down to the sticks that aren't quite long enough to go between the stakes. Make them into smaller stakes, ones that don't go into the ground but nonetheless weave vertically through your box walls. Hey, it's starting to look more like a box!
Protip: break off the ends of the stakes and your new vertical weave so they don't have out too much, and WEAR YOUR GLOVES, don't be an idiot like me and think you're safe because you don't have thorns to deal with.
Step six: fill it with dirt.
If you have any budget, use it all here. Get good, organic dirt, get your compost bin empty, and be extra careful taking dirt from elsewhere if you don't know exactly what has been leaking into it.
Protip: get more dirt than you think you need. Dirt is fluffy. The second you get water on it all the air goes away and you have a three inches deep garden box. In the unlikely event that you get more dirt than you need, use it for your houseplants or porch containers.
And that's it! Plant what you like! Use the seeds you've stolen from other gardens and the insides of your daily fruit! If you've bothered your nosy neighbor and they have alerted the HOA or your landlord, take this time to brush up on your various rights. If your neighbor dislikes you because they believe you to be a witch and a lesbian and idk, a long haired hippy or some other deeply outdated derogatory term, get those middle fingers up because you are going to help the bees and they aren't.
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