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Oct 14, 2024

I Can’t Get Enough of These Steel Tubs in My Garden | Reviews by Wirecutter

By Jackie Reeve Jackie Reeve is a writer covering all things bedding. She has also reported on towels, rugs, and chicken coops (with help from her 20 backyard pets). We’ve added more information about

By Jackie Reeve

Jackie Reeve is a writer covering all things bedding. She has also reported on towels, rugs, and chicken coops (with help from her 20 backyard pets).

We’ve added more information about how corrosion in galvanized steel tubs might affect the soil. It’s not likely to be a safety issue.

I’m an avid gardener, and we own a small farm in western Washington. But I spend most of my days in my home office, which is in our basement.

It has everything I could possibly need for work, for sewing in my free time, or simply for watching Bridgerton in peace and quiet. I’m lucky to have it (and it does have one set of doors to the ground level), but it’s still an office … in the basement.

A few years ago I decided to give myself a change of scenery by starting a container garden on the patio just outside, with a little table I could work at on sunny days. I had a lot of ideas for flowers to draw in pollinators, as well as colors and smells to relax my mind when my writing is stuck.

But first I needed pots—a lot of them. I built this garden just for me, on a budget, so I wanted gorgeous, dependable containers that wouldn’t break the bank. After a lot of trial and error, Behrens tubs became my go-tos. And though I use many different sizes in my garden (and, increasingly, all over our farm), my absolute favorites are the Behrens Galvanized Steel Bushel Basket and the Behrens 17-Gallon Multi-Purpose Steel Utility Tub.

These big tubs have modern country vibes. They’re durable, they don’t overheat plants, and they can hold everything from wildflowers to rose bushes.

These simply styled tubs are bigger than the bushels, and they’re a little easier to find at local DIY stores. They make it easy to move larger garden dwellers (like small trees).

When I started my garden, I didn’t start with Behrens tubs. I started with cheap plastic pots, but they didn’t have the look or the sizes I wanted.

Next I upgraded to terra-cotta pots … and promptly broke a lot of terra-cotta pots. They’re so pretty but so fragile. I also learned the hard way that they can crumble and crack if you leave them out year-round here in the Pacific Northwest.

I’d become familiar with Behrens as a brand. It’s hard not to when you live on a farm, and you suddenly find yourself spending all of your time at hardware stores and every local farm store in the county. Our property is now littered with Behrens trash cans (for storing chicken feed and potting soil) and square tubs (dust baths for said chickens). I even tested a Behrens watering can for our guide. I knew this company’s stuff was affordable and good in all weather.

So I picked up some secondhand Behrens tubs to try as planters. I cleaned them, drilled drainage holes in the bottoms, and planted some annuals. I wish I’d thought of these tubs first and saved myself some money, because my garden looked instantly incredible.

As my garden grew, so did the size of the pots I needed. I discovered Behrens bushels and 17-gallon round tubs at local hardware stores. And today, I have two decorative Meyer lemon trees in bushels, so it’s easy to plop them into my greenhouse for the winter and wheel them out to my container garden for the summer. Outside my office, several bushels hold roses, peonies, and wildflowers, and my 17-gallon tubs contain a romping assortment of mints and a few shrubs, plus several dwarf apple trees in our kitchen garden. By planting trees in containers, I can control the soil mix and move the trees around if they seem unhappy with the light, which is harder to do if they’re planted in the ground. I can also companion-plant herbs and other good things around them for natural pest control.

Extra-large plant pots can get really expensive unless you score some gems secondhand. But the Behrens tubs are generously sized and made of galvanized steel (which means they have a protective zinc coating to guard against corrosion), and they cost under $30 each. My tubs have stayed sturdy and rust-free through several gardening seasons, despite being stored outside through heat waves, snow, ice, and the endless months of rain here. If I do eventually have to replace them, it won’t cost a fortune.

Galvanized steel is generally recognized to be safe for growing edible plants, when the coating is in good condition. Corrosion might expose your plants to “small amounts of heavy metals,” said Brent Crain, a consumer horticulture educator at the Michigan State University Extension, “but not in a concentration that is likely to raise any safety concerns.”

Still, to be extra safe, Behrens recommends that you “regularly check the integrity” of your containers for signs of corrosion. Since acid can also contribute to corrosion, you may want to monitor the acidity of your soil, using an inexpensive testing kit, said C. Lee Burras, a professor in the department of agronomy at Iowa State University. Look for a pH level above 6, and, “if need be, add some arginine [and] ground up calcium carbonate,” Burras said.

Some people report that the metal can overheat their plants. This hasn’t been the case for me, but I live in the PNW, where our damp soil might protect the plants. My tubs and bushels (and the plants in them) didn’t overheat during our 2022 heat wave, when temperatures remained in the 90s for about a week. I don’t know how plants would react to longer stretches at higher temperatures.

My tubs live in one of the sunniest spots in our yard year-round, and I pick summer plants that like sun and heat. On our hottest days, the handles never get too hot to touch, and my plants remain as happy as anything else outside (they do need extra watering, though, which is a downside of any container garden).

The giant labels are also a pain to remove. It takes elbow grease and a fair amount of rubbing alcohol to get rid of all the sticky residue (sometimes I don’t bother and just turn the containers so the labels face away).

The handles are sturdy, but they’re small and thin—especially uncomfortable when the tubs are full of soil and actual trees. I have a few of these comfort grip handle covers, which help.

Finally, Behrens makes many tubs, but some of them are harder to find than others. If I find a size I really love, I’ll get multiples to have them on hand.

A spray with the hose is all these tubs need, unless you’re planting something new, and then you’ll want to give them a good scrub with soap and water. For proper drainage, I drill a lot of holes in the bottom of each one (eight to 12, at least), and this also helps prevent damage to the plants and to the tubs from standing water.

Follow instructions from Behrens, and check your containers for signs of corrosion.

This article was edited by Katie Okamoto and Catherine Kast.

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Jackie Reeve

Jackie Reeve is a senior staff writer covering bedding, organization, and home goods at Wirecutter since 2015. Previously she was a school librarian, and she’s been a quilter for about 15 years. Her quilt patterns and her other written work have appeared in various publications. She moderates Wirecutter’s staff book club and makes her bed every morning.