I'm pretty excited about a potential gardening project for spring. I've been wanting to get some nice vertical gardening going on my ugly cinder block walls, and I haven't been all that successful.
I tried a stupid thing where I shoved the coir liners into the oval cut outs and filled them with soil and planted petunias. That was kind of a perfect storm of conditions to cause the things to dry out immediately.
Last year I got those Woolly Pocket grow bags. I put the big one on the wall and tied it on with some twine. It did ok. I was worried it didn't hold water very well, because it seemed to drain a little too well. That worked out ok for a while, but sometime in the middle of the summer, I broke the twine and the whole thing crashed to the ground. I left it there on the ground for a few weeks, at first because I was too bad at myself to deal with it. Also just lazy. Because it had just fallen straight down, it kind of looked ok sitting on the ground against the wall. The plants didn't seem to suffer too much. If I use that thing again, I'll use proper zip ties.
The Woolly Pockets are very nice, but they're expensive. If I wanted to cover the wall, I would need to spend like $400.
Mike McGrath had a guest who wrote a book about vertical gardening and she talked about using gutters, in multiple rows. One could also use the plastic window boxes, which would of course be much greater volumes of soil, but that would also start to get expensive. I would probably be out, like, $150. They're also about 7 inches wide, which would take up more horizontal space.
Gutters are obviously a lot cheaper. By my estimate, I can cover my wall with 3 rows of 7 foot long gutters and all the hardware and connectors for about $20. They're obviously a lot smaller; it looks like they're 5 inches wide and 3-4 inches deep. That seems small, but there are window boxes that are about that size, too. (Those little copper ones, typically.) I think the fact that they're vinyl should be good for keeping them from drying out too much.
The author on YBYG pointed out that having a lot of small containers near each other means they don't dry out nearly as fast as they would if they were on their own. Since they're only 5 inches wide, they'll sit fairly flat to the wall, which will look nice and not compromise much of the patio space.
And they actually look pretty nice. The molded shape is very aesthetically pleasing. And they're white, which is fine. They're also paintable, so if I want to get crafty, I could get some Rustoleum or something and paint them to match the patio raised bed.
Obviously the size limits the kinds of plants I can have. But lettuce would be perfect. I want to grow a lot of Mesclun and stuff like that. A gutter is like a single row of lettuce. And that would look so beautiful, and grow quickly. Pansies would also be great, they don't seem to ever expand their roots past the volume they occupied in the cell, so I think they'd be happy there.
In the summer, I'll definitely do some Nasturtiums. They're also really fast growing, they grow from seed really easily so it's cheap (just buy 1 pack of seeds, which says it has 50 seeds.) Some people seem to be growing Strawberries in these gutters. That's probably the only edible thing I can grow in the summer. I could do herbs, especially the smaller ones like Thyme or Sage.
I don't really want to use too many different kinds of plants, because it won't look very good. In the Spring, just Lettuce and Pansies. Lettuce on its own is so beautiful. I can plant it at the end of March (in 2 weeks), and it'll be all full and pretty by the end of April. I would then plant Nasturtium seeds at the end of April, and when the lettuce dies, the Nasturtiums will be getting going.
I am a little concerned about the height of the plants that can go in there. With the layout I'm planning, there would be 5 inches between the top of one and the bottom of the other. That's fine for the Nasturtiums, and I probably for the Strawberries. I guess if I grow small leaf lettuce like Mesclun, they would be ok. Looking at pictures from the lettuces I grew in containers, they didn't get more than 5 inches high, if I don't count the Romaine.
Ok! I can't think of a good reason not to do this. I might have some issues with water, especially when I'm travelling. If I do this, I'll be able to grow all these lettuces right there, and I was otherwise limited by the space in the raised bed. I don't really think it's worth building out the raised bed. It would mainly be to get that extra sun for a tomato, but I don't really think I need to grow that many tomatoes. Maybe two plants, at the most. The area next to it might be ok for the green beans even without any raised bed. I mean, it's not like I want those to be much more elevated. The soil's a little compact over there, but if I mix in some perlite that could help, right? I'll just use those lean-to trellises I already have.
The only sad thing is that they just replaced a bunch of gutters. If I'd been thinking about this a lot earlier, I could have trash-picked some gutters to use, and I wouldn't even be buying those. If I see them come back to do more, I'll try to catch them. They should be coming back, there are a lot of old and busted gutters around. That might not be worth the effort. If I buy them new, I'll be able to get the right end caps and everything. The existing ones will already be sealed together.
I will also get to fill up the Patio bed with some kind of shade happy plants. I might move my Hostas over there, even though they aren't supposed to be in a raised container. I bet they'll be fine. I'd also like to get some tender perennials like Elephant Ears and Begonias.
Hm. If one wall is covered with Nasturtiums, the pink Begonias are going to look stupid.
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