Making Ripples: post-corporate adventures in Floyd County Virginia

Making a raised planter out of a horse feeder

The favorite way of using this kind of trough feeder as a planter is to build in a reservoir to hold a supply of water before putting in the potting soil. This gives you a planter which will require less water and fewer waterings.

Tape over any holes in the bottom of the trough and then drill a series of 3/4 inch diameter drain holes in the walls of the trough about 1 1/2 inches above the bottom as shown here. When the water depth gets over 1 1/4 inches deep, the excess water will drain out through the drain holes. I put drain holes only on one side of the planter so that water would drain toward the outside of the deck and not all over the deck floor.

If you want to prevent your soil from running out the drain holes, use a sheet of landscape cloth to line the trough. If you don't have access to landscape cloth, sheets of cardboard will keep the soil from running out with the water.

Put a generous inch of gravel in the bottom of the trough to act as a reservoir. Even layers of newspaper will do. If you don't have access to gravel, fill the reservoir space with Perlite or Vermiculate. Anything that is inert and non-water absorbent will do. Marbles, broken pottery, even bits of brick can be used.


Once your reservoir space is filled to the bottom of the drain holes, cover the filler with landscape cloth or sheets of corrugated cardboard. Acually anything inert that allows water to percolate through will be fine.

Make up a potting soil of 1/3 Perlite or vermiculate, 1//3 composted manure, and 1/3 topsoil and mix it thoroughly.  The final mixture should be light and easy to work with.

Fill the trough with the potting soil and cut off any surplus landscape cloth or cardboard and you are ready to plant

This potting soil is about 1/2 as heavy as an equivalent amount of top soil and your planter will be light enough to move if needed.

The runners on the bottom make it quite easy to rearrange the planter on a deck or on a patio.

Micro-Gardening is great for your morale

It has been 37 days since my last micro-garden update and things seem to be going well. In our part of Floyd, VA, the weather has been mostly cool and rainy with a few days of bright sunshine in the past few weeks.

One end of the deck has been devoted to the micro garden and it is a green oasis of peace and quiet where we can putter around with our morning cup of coffee and the cats find it to be a cool refuge in the heat of the day.

Most of our vegetables are thriving and none were damaged by the heavy rains of the past few weeks. The potting soil recipe I borrowed from the Square Foot Gardening people has worked beautifully and we have had few weeds and almost no insect damage.

The plants have grown so much that it has been necessary to separate the containers by a foot or more to avoid crowding. As you can see, the sunflower and the sugar peas are taller than I am. We now have some home-grown vegetables on the table every day.

We have enjoyed lettuce and onion greens (in salad) for several weeks. One of our tomato plants produces a few sweet yellow grape tomatoes which are so good they never make it into the kitchen. The big tomatoes are finally ripening and we should be eating them later this week.

We have been eating the sugar peas, but they will be even better in a few days.

We planted several different kinds of beans and the first crop is almost ready for the cooking pot.

We have weeks to go before the carrots are ready and I have no idea how long it will take for the parsnips and the squash to mature, but we are enjoying the bounty of our garden and it takes very little work.
The results are not in yet for our upside-down tomatoes although Gretchen says they are beginning to put on a growth spurt and may produce tomatoes this season.

The squash are still small, but they look healthy and I have great hopes for them. We will just have to wait and see.

I plan on doubling the number of containers next year and planting some early Spring vegetables as well.
 

I don't think we are saving any money this year, but we are taking control of some of our food production, learning a lot of new skills, and are enjoying it immensely.

Our small garden gives us a greater appreciation of the problems that our neighboring farmers have to deal with.

If the economy continues on its downward trend, we'll need to sharpen our gardening skills further and be ready to grow as much food as possible.

That will entail getting a roto-tiller and stringing more electric fencing. Next years project...