Strawberries in pipes

[veggiechicken]

Just wait until you get to my age.........

PS Try Control & + to enlarge it

[Bigmallly]

PS Try Control & + to enlarge it

I always wondered what the secret was............

[veggiechicken]

.......I only found out recently too..........Its amazing what you learn on here

[redser]

Thanks. Yeah it's a pain trying to scrounge materials that are only red
I made the ends out of disks cut from plastic milk jugs. And then laced some old washing line through drilled holes to keep them from falling out. They're a snug fit but there are some little gaps so I'll hang them at a very slight angle and that should give a little drainage. Plus I drilled small holes along the undersides of the pipes. A bit worried that the depth of soil isn't enough but hopefully the roots will just travel along the pipe. Bound to get 1 years crop from them. With good feeding 2 would be great!

[Bigmallly]

Thanks. Yeah it's a pain trying to scrounge materials that are only red
I made the ends out of disks cut from plastic milk jugs. And then laced some old washing line through drilled holes to keep them from falling out. They're a snug fit but there are some little gaps so I'll hang them at a very slight angle and that should give a little drainage. Plus I drilled small holes along the undersides of the pipes. A bit worried that the depth of soil isn't enough but hopefully the roots will just travel along the pipe. Bound to get 1 years crop from them. With good feeding 2 would be great!

Nothing ventured, nothing gained Red........

[redser]

Thought I'd update this nearly a year later. It's been a great success! I'm well chuffed. These are June bearers (Elsanta) and they are ahead of all my other outdoor ones. I think they are ahead because of the root restriction. Also the soil/compost dried out a couple of times so I think they got stressed. But bounced back all the same with watering and feeding. This is just the first picking The old photos are on the previous pages.
Thanks

[redser]

Dirty fly!!!!

[veggiechicken]

They look fantastic, redser!! I do like to see results from experiments
Just wondering whether you could suspend the pipes so that they don't take up floor space
Funnily enough, I was thinking about those upright strawberry planters the other day - with the watering tube in the middle. It might be better to put a spiral of leaky pipe in the barrel so that the water flowed through the soil at all levels. Hope that make sense

[redser]

Yes is does, thats a good idea, I'd say it would work much better.
I wanted to suspend the pipes at first but it was getting complicated. So I just raised them up on blocks in a line and put them at the base of the poytunnel. So that was dead space put to good use anyway

[veggiechicken]

Suspend them by threading a wire/rope through the pipe across the top running under the cutout bits ?

[Bren In Pots]

Do you mean something like this :-

How To Make A Hanging Gutter Garden

[redser]

Thing was, once you do that, when you water the excess would run out the drainage holes and land on the plants beneath. Plus I would have had to make a frame fr them to hang from. So I hummed and hawed and made some drawings and in the end just tried it this way. Much simpler and works perfectly well

[Guykp57]

Has anybody tried using pallet on an angle to grow veg? Saw article in Kitchen Gardener today looks great idea..can't wait to se what Veggie has to say.

[veggiechicken]

I haven't but I'm sure others here have Soon, I shall be showing you my freestanding pallet planter - made specifically for strawberries - but its still in the design stages

[jessmorris]

Some friends have split some pipe lengthwise and hung it up in their polytunnel horizontally, like guttering. They grow strawberries in there to keep the slugs off. Works a treat!