I have this old animal watering trough with the bottom rusted out. I have been using it for my garden tools. That's nice, but it seems like such a waste of garden space. It is 3' long, 2' wide, and 2 1/2 ' deep. Eliminating anything I would have to dig out of there, such as potatoes, what vegetable can you suggest that appreciates a deep soil?

Tomatoes, watermelon, lima beans, okra, rhubarb, winter squash. Not sure which work best for your climate.

and if I owned that trough, I'd be tempted to set it up as a worm bin!

I have a place for all those things. Maybe there IS nothing that has 2' roots.

Comfrey. It'll fill the container with roots. And then you can use the comfrey in a nearly endless array of uses.

Yes, and other herbs would work well too.

Jerusalem artichokes - keep 'em confined so they don't escape into the wild.

Carrots?

I have two of those by pillars in front of my barn with climbing roses in them.

Perhaps put a liner in it and make a water or bog garden?

Only your imagination limits the choices. Practically any vegetable that is confined, such as carrots, onions, garlic, lettuce, celery, etc. A large, "patio" tomato would work. Any of the herbs would certainly do well. Of course lots of colorful flowers could be your center-piece. The list of grow-able plants is practically endless.

You could fill it with a variety of nasturtiums, with the trailing type around the edges. They make yummy salad fixings!

Sweet peas, dill and carrots!

Thank you all for the ideas. Since this trough is metal, in full sun, and in Texas, I have decided to put peppers and eggplant in the middle of it, strawberries around the edge, so they can drape over the edge and look pretty. I love sweetpeas Cindi but its too hot here. Can't even get them to germinate. Not even in the winter.

Sounds good!

Oh, that will look nice, as well as being tasty!

This is my new strawberry, eggplant, and chili planter. I filled it with about 18" of debris, per @dave wonderful idea. Then 18"s of layers of mulch, garden soil (if you can call it that), and potting soil. Draped old shirts over the SW side to keep the metal from burning the strawberries. And planted the strawberries, as I had already bought the roots. They are now covered as its supposed to freeze tonight. I will have to transplant some of them later, as there are too many for the aamount of edge I have. I have never once got a strawberry in all my years of gardening in TX. I THINK I was buying the wrong type, as I always got the ever bearing type. ( fresh strawberries all summer!) And, by the time they could start producing, it's too hot here for them. This time I got those that have a big harvest and are done in June.




Sorry the picture is out of focus, but I had to run drive the goats out of the yard, then it started thunder and lightening, so i came in the house.

Frost/freeze doesn't hurt strawberries...

I've never been a fan of ever bearing strawberries. I think you'll be happy with June bearers. First year you will only get a few berries. I usually plant mine in the fall though.

I'm glad to hear that a freeze won't bother them. You have any idea if 20 plants will produce enough berries for 1 pie? Maybe the second year? I would be happy with that.

Probably not the first year. Then they will have runners and more than double your plant numbers. So yes, the second year. The first year you'll probably just get enough to pick and eat right in the garden. Enjoy!!!

We have three 50' rows that are 3 1/2' wide. The third row was just planted last fall so it won't give us many berries, but the other two will. And the first row will be tilled under this fall for a three year rotation. We will plant another new row every fall. Actually, this fall we will plant two new rows so we will have four rows.

Last year we had enough berries for us to eat fresh and we sold about 5 qts. at market two times. This year I would like to make some freezer jam. I may have frozen a few whole berries last year as well. But we have 6 people eating them!