Lettuce And Radishes Raised In Lengths Of Plastic Rain Gutter

Lettuce And Radishes Raised In Lengths Of Plastic Rain Gutter FARM HOME Miscellaneous 34-4-41 Here are a couple gardening ideas FARM SHOW readers may be interested in. April Probst, who lives nearby in Filmore, Ill., raises several thousand plants each spring for area gardeners in a hoop house on her farm. She also gardens for herself and she likes to experiment. Her latest idea is raising leaf lettuce and radishes in lengths of plastic rain gutter. She says you can mount the gutters at a convenient height so they're easy to plant and harvest, and she mounts them at a slight angle so she can water the entire trough by pouring water in one end. I had my own idea, after having read about several raised garden beds in FARM SHOW. I realized a picnic table would be just the right height for a raised garden so I built some boxes on top of a table and mixed up peat, vermiculite and compost to fill the center compartments. At either end I simply cut open two bags of potting soil and planted directly into them. I positioned the picnic table near a hydrant and drilled 1/16-in. holes into a hose to make a simple drip irrigation system. To keep water from squirting out too fast, I simply tied strips of cloth around the holes. The hose lies across the garden so it's easy to keep it moist. I like using the picnic table because it's the right height when standing and I can sit down on the benches when tired. (C.F. Marley, Nokomis, Ill.)

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