Fruit Buckets and Trash Plants

photo: nybg.org

Just read an interesting article in last weekend's Financial Times by well-known British garden writer Robin Lane Fox  -- on the merits of growing fruit in metal garbage cans or large buckets, which of course can be painted any color you like to go with your garden decor.

According to Fox, raspberries and pole beans do extremely well in garbage cans -- just punch some holes in the bottom, fill with soil, give them plenty of water -- and voila! Another plus is that it's hard for animals to do much damage to crops grown in such tall containers. Fox particularly recommends autumn-fruiting raspberries for containers, as they should be cut back in spring, when planted, and will then provide plenty of fruit in the fall.

He grows strawberries in hardware-store plastic buckets and gooseberries in big terracotta-colored plastic containers that can be found in most garden centers or hardware stores.  These containers, too, he says, take well to paint.  Sounds like a great idea to me.

If you'd like to read the original article, try here.

And by the way, you might look into the weekend edition of the Financial Times, which comes out on Saturdays -- Fox has a column every week, well worth reading.

 

 

Comments

[Stacey Pierson]

Hi Jane, just saw this and wanted to find out where the image of the raspberries was obtained. It's actually a new raspberry from one of my clients - http://brazelberries.com. It would be great if you could credit BrazelBerries.

Thanks,
Stacey