What can you grow in guttering?

[nickdub]

A lot depends on the time of year and how much time you can spend looking after it, as well as the site.

Now in Summer there's a lot of light, so most of the plants you mention are possible, but on v sunny days you might need to water twice. In the Autumn and Spring its trickier as the light levels fall - best bet is to start a few plants from seed and see how you go. If you are short of time it might be worth having a look at automatic watering systems - you can feed through the water too. Some of the cheapo shops have packets of salad seeds where you can get small amounts of radish, lettuce, spring onion etc all in one price.

Happy gardening :-)

[JonnyJonny]

Thank you

Nick,

Many thanks for the advice. I'm going to give it a go and buy just one length of gutter for now and see how I get on.

Jonny

[Aberdeenplotter]

where you only have a shallow growing area, shaded is better. Full sun would dry your growing medium out quite quickly.

As an aside, a guy called Bernard Lavery, I think he's no longer with us but apologies if I'm wrong, grew his attempts at the world's longest parsnip in gutters. I think he got to over 31ft.

[JonnyJonny]

What 'medium' is best

Hi,
Thanks for the advice that shade is best (good news for me), but your post begs the question, what medium should I use? I was thinking of topsoil, but should I use something else eg potting compost?
Jonny

[nickdub]

Hi,
Thanks for the advice that shade is best (good news for me), but your post begs the question, what medium should I use? I was thinking of topsoil, but should I use something else eg potting compost?
Jonny

Depends to some extent on what plants you are thinking of growing and what you have available to use. I'd say a mix of soil and compost would probably be a good place to start, with some slow release fertiliser, leafmould added in would be good for something like strawberries.