Thursday, June 7, 2012

REPOST: Gutter Garden!

I love repost days. I get a day off and get to feel like I am contributing to the blogoshpere! Serious though I thought this was one of my better "Weird Garden Science" posts. So from 8/25/2011, and 8/15/2011 we have GARDEN GUTTER SUCCESS!
 
Just thought I would give y'all a look at the Gutter Garden all planted and happy!

HOW TO MAKE YOUR OWN HANGING GUTTER GARDEN:

I am going to have a talk with a gal from the community garden who is a professional landscaper on adding drip irrigation to it!

I became so obssesed with the Gutter Garden I had to make one for myself! First problem is I couldn’t find the “U” shaped style gutters they used in theirs, but I did find this kind of hermaphrodited "V" shaped at Lowes for $6.19 for a ten foot section, since I am making 5 levels to my gutter garden, that was great… although the end caps were $2.77 each or $16.62. Still, Under $5 for each section… is more than Do-Able. Of course my garage has those crappy vinyl gutters, and they must come off soon so it is good to know I will have a use for them after their existence has been terminated. Anyway back to the project:
First- I cut the gutters to 5- 23 ½ inch sections

Then I drilled to holes for the Eye Hooks and for drainage
(A quick hint: Since the holes have to be approximately the same measurement on the gutter, you can stack the gutter pieces together and drill them all at once to dave some time and frustration.
Then I installed the end caps
Then I put the eye hooks in,
a ¼”-20 X 2” on the bottom,
and a ¼”-20 X 4” on the upper or inside of the gutter using a coupler nut (so I have an eye hook above and one below so a person could stack the gutters by chain
Then it is done- you can go hang your gutter garden.
I suppose a person could just build on a wall or a fence by installing the gutters like they are on your house, but where is the fun in that? Besides I needed something in this space on the front porch. Now to start planting with chard and lettuce seeds! This would also be perfect for planting strawberries. The total cost ended up being $30.75, but would of course be a lot cheaper if I reused those old gutters on the garage!

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