A few months back I posted a
couple of great ideas for gardening in limited spaces. One of those I posted was gutter gardens. I thought it was a really neat idea and decided that I needed to have me one. When we remodeled the chicken coop over the winter I knew immediately where I wanted to hang my gutter garden project that I was eventually going to have and today I have my gutter garden planted.
I should have taken a photo of the pieces of gutter we had to use. One section was smashed flat and the other was sliced, had a few rust issues and was so loppy jawed it wasn't funny. Again we beat and banged, yes I can include myself today, chopped, sliced and hammered and we now have a fully functioning 12 foot long section of garden area on the chicken run fence line.
All we did was splice the two pieces of gutter, fabricate a couple end pieces (remind me to NEVER choose this as a career), attach the gutter hangers to the wood rail on the chicken run and add a couple wires for good measure. Cost to us was nothing as we had the scraps lying around and it took about an hour n a half from start to finish. I then filled it with soil, some compost and planted it out with 3 types of lettuce and some spinach. The area it is located in will be somewhat shaded once the trees come in to their leaves and I am hoping to prolong our lettuce and greens season. To go with the theme of cheap garden, the seeds were from DG and cost a total of a buck. We have discussed putting a little walk way on the inside of the chicken run at the level of the gutter garden and making a chicken buffet of sorts, I think they would love it!
If someone had to go out and purchase the gutters new this could be a bit costly to set up especially if you were running more than one run of gutter. At the same time gutters are hung every day all over the world so finding some used ones shouldn't be too difficult. With craigs list and such these days I imagine in an urban or suburban area, these could be readily found.
No comments:
Post a Comment