Pictured are three zucchini plants that were ready for transplanting into the ground
Last week I was reading a post by about how she took some bottomless buckets gifted to her from a neighbor and used them to make an in-ground greenhouse. Well, I took the idea and instead of making a greenhouse out of them, I started a bottomless bucket ground garden around my homestead.
The reason I decided to use these dollar store garbage can style buckets is for a few reasons...
- They are cheap- $1- no loss of money here really and I had a stash of them for some reason
- I didn't want to weedwhack the ground cover at the back of the property because there are some great wild edibles and foraging plants there (burdock, garlic mustard, raspberry plants, etc) but yet I wanted the zucchini to be able to grow in their own little garden area
- This technique actually saves me the time to dig holes for the plants but still allows the roots to get strong and big
- I didn't want to disturb the natural environment in this creek bed drop off area
Once the plants and stems start to grow, I can take some stakes and push into the ground for the vines to attach to and keep the zucchini up off the ground. I may end up making a small trellis back there for more support than the stakes can offer; but I'll wait and see how they plants do as I have never utilized this area of the property before.
While I was at it, I did the same for my last Luffa gourd plant too. It was looking a little resentful in the planter I had it in inside the greenhouse and I was afraid the roots were overloaded and didn't have enough room to grow properly; giving me a not-so-good harvest. So I applied the same principal in an open area near the shed. There are some underground electrical wires here and I was NOT going to ram a shovel into the dirt; so this was the alternative.
Using a razor cutter, I cut out the bottom of the bucket
As I said, these are cheap plastic buckets/containers from a dollar store, so the razor was more than enough to cut through it.
Hole cut out and bucket is ready for use
Find the location to put bucket and fill with appropriate potting soil and add the seedling. Easy work