I inherited this garden tub wagon from my grandfather-in-law who had was very creative and a fun loving guy. I was honored to receive something from him but I wasn’t sure what to do with the tub wagon. I struggled for awhile to figure out what to do with it. Then one day while my husband and I were discussing the garden we were about to make I asked him if I could make container garden this year instead of having a regular garden. Of course we settled on having both a container garden with some of my favorite vegetables and a regular garden cause you can’t grow corn in a container. Or at least I haven’t seen it done yet.
I have before pictures and after pictures and I’m going to let you know now. I thought this was going to be an easy project but I was WRONG. This project was very time consuming but I enjoyed every minute of it. My back and legs didn’t but that is part of the process I guess. When I received the tub wagon one wheel was not broken so my husband and his father welded the wheel back onto the wagon. This was a challenge for him because the tub is cast iron and there was a big hole in the tub. However my husband is creative as well so he managed to get the wheel on and still have accessible to roll when needed.
My next challenge was to paint the tub wagon but first I had to sand it down. I put my safety glasses and turned the wagon tub upside down and took my mouse sander to it. Flecks of rust flew everywhere. I found rust in my shirt and still can’t quite figure out how it got there since I wasn’t topless while sanding. After sanding the outside of the tub wagon and the wheels the best I could with a wire pad and wire brush. I decided it was time to paint.
I painted the whole tube white when my husband asked me to paint the wagon cover and spokes red. I thought this was a great idea. The big mistake I made was that I had already turned the wagon tub right side up and painting near the ground was a bit tough on my back. I tried sitting but my dogs kept coming over thinking it was lap time with mom. I tried squatting but the dogs through it was sniffing time so that was out too. I pulled up a chair and just leaned over and my cat thought it was massage time on my back. After several attempts I realized I just needed to lean over and head butt my dogs out of the way when they came over to try to give love.
The wagon cover was so much easier to paint. After finishing up the cover and wheels I wasn’t sure what to do with the inside since it’s porcelain. I just washed it out and left it alone because I didn’t want the paint to interfere with the plant. I started looking at the tub and realized that it would take a lot of soil to fill the tub. So I cheated. Yes I will admit I wanted to the tub filled but didn’t want to weigh the tub down anymore than it already was. So decided to put carboard boxes under the soil which meant I could use less soil and still have it deep enough for my vegetables to grow roots. I love the results!!!!
