Yet again I got another fantastic idea from tumblr gardening scrolling and blogging. Growing in vertical space, and growing in guttering. There are some fantastic scenarios of people using a fence and rigging up guttering, filling it with soil and planting herbs and lettuces. I wanted to grow strawberries, but do not have the bed or garden space for them. The thought of hanging baskets was of course in my mind, however somewhere that would get sufficient sun, I did not have the space for. So this was my solution.
This is 2 metres of structured drainage. We drilled holes along the bottom, put the caps in the ends, screwed it to the fence and filled it with compost. The whole project took about 15 minutes and $50 for the drainage channel.
I brought 10 bare root strawberries from diggers, and when they arrived they were literally roots, a base and not much else. I think of the 10 I had one lonely leaf. These pictures were taken about 2 weeks after planting. They are loving the sunny spot and watering they are getting. It is a little over planted, I wanted to put 5 plants in per 2 metres, but we are on a budget so one set for now.
I am very happy with how it has ended up looking, and I love the idea that the strawberries themselves will hang over the edge and not have problems like pests from resting in soil.
I really like the idea of using all the space you have. And growing vertically like this will give me the opportunity to have great strawberries without taking up precious bed or garden space. It also means no dog proofing needed as they cannot lay, rest, dig or eat their way through these.
