GB 108 Water Trough Gardening
28:09
SPEAKERS
Debbie Flower, Ed Laivo, Farmer Fred
Farmer Fred 00:00
Garden Basics with Farmer Fred is brought to you by Smart Pots, the original lightweight, long lasting fabric plant container. it's made in the USA. Visit SmartPots.com slash Fred for more information and a special discount, that's SmartPots.com/Fred.
Farmer Fred 00:20
Welcome to the Garden Basics with Farmer Fred podcast. If you're just a beginning gardener or you want good gardening information, you've come to the right spot.
Farmer Fred 00:32
Using livestock water troughs to grow plants is a great idea. You can grow just about anything, from food crops to flowers to shrubs, even small trees or bamboo. Livestock water troughs, also known as stock tanks, come in various sizes, and many have plugs along the side to allow for drainage and you can always improve the drainage by drilling several one inch diameter holes in the bottom. Painting the troughs can help reflect the heat, and the color can blend in better with your outdoor decor. And of course, you can custom mix the soil for a watering trough to fit the exact needs of whatever you might be growing. For instance, you want an acidic soil for blueberries? Well, we'll have a recipe just for that today. Debbie Flower and I explore livestock water trough gardening today on episode 108 of the Garden Basics with Farmer Fred podcast, brought to you today by Smart Pots. And we'll do it all in under 30 minutes. Let's go.
Farmer Fred 01:32
We like to answer your garden questions here on the Garden Basics podcast. We're talking with Debbie Flower, our favorite retired college horticultural professor. And we got an email from Kathy, who writes in about using watering troughs, or those steel horse troughs, as she puts it, for planting boxes on the south side of their house using those instead of raised planting beds. She writes, "They get pretty hot to the touch and I realized they reflect heat. Have you used them? Maybe you put pipe insulation around the top rim? Would you suggest painting them a light color? Have you heard any comments about their use, any issues with plant roots baking as with black plastic pots?" And then she did the fun thing of watching YouTube videos on the subject. And that's always an adventure. And she says: "That brought up additional questions I have. Do you put wheels on the troughs? Some people do that once the troughs have soil in them. They are quite heavy and difficult to move. If a person wants to move them, should I put soil cloth on the bottom to help keep the soil in after I drill some water drain holes? Should I put styrofoam peanuts in the bottom so I don't use that much soil? Should I maybe put soil cloth on top of those styrofoam peanut fillers? And finally, potting soil with amendments and plants. How full should I put it in the trough if I want to top it with several inches of mulch? What has worked for you?" Did you ever grow in troughs, Debbie?
Debbie Flower 03:01
I do. I have bamboo in troughs. I have three troughs. And they are on the southwest side of my house, so they get very hot. And bamboo is a unique plant in how it grows. So that's something to keep in mind. But I have never drilled holes in them. I just take out, there's a plug, I call it a bung. But there's a plug on the side so that the trough can be drained. I just take that out. And that's my drainage point. I use drip irrigation on top. I filled it completely with container media with a substantial amount of pumice in that media. Because container media is made of organic matter, it breaks down over time. And that limits oxygen and air movement in the media. And so it can limit the plant's growth. Again, I'm using bamboo. They're very vigorous growers if you give them water, so it's maybe a little bit less of an issue for my plants. But I put the pumice in there to keep some of those openings in the media available for air and water to move through it.
Farmer Fred 04:08
Did you paint those troughs?
Debbie Flower 04:10
I did not paint my troughs. I did not put wheels on them. I filled them, I'd say, maybe two inches from the top and I have noticed that they have settled since being filled. I have, I should say, one I just planted last year. One I planted the year before and the other one is been out there probably six years or so.
Farmer Fred 04:29
Alright, and these are on the south side of your house. So they're getting warm.
Debbie Flower 04:33
Yes, they get very warm.
Farmer Fred 04:36
And how is the bamboo doing in those?
Debbie Flower 04:37
The bamboo is doing really well. The one that was planted most recently just shot up, they're called culms, C-U-L-M-S. It is the stem of the bamboo that carries the leaves. It's not a true stem. The true stem is actually underground, but they're called culms. And they shot up. The previous plant had been maybe four feet tall, and these are at least 10 feet tall. So they've loved the environment and are growing very well.
Farmer Fred 05:07
Have they escaped?
Debbie Flower 05:09
No.
Farmer Fred 05:10
Good, you would think they would find that one drain hole.
Debbie Flower 05:14
Right, but that's on the side. And so I would see that immediately, I was just talking to a friend this morning who planted his bamboo in a wooden half barrel, and it has escaped and grown into the soil beneath that half barrel. So depending on what surface you're putting these troughs on, but if it's on soil, that's something to consider are the roots going to go out the bottom and keep growing.
Farmer Fred 05:43
Would that be mitigated if you raised that trough? I have troughs too, and I usually raise them about four inches or so with bricks or four by fours just to have some space between the bottom of the trough and the soil below. So the roots won't even want to go out the drain holes in order to find soil because they won't find any, they'll find air,
Debbie Flower 06:08
Right. And air pruning is a thing. It's used in pot design. Sometimes you see those pots with the holes all over the side. And there are some that are that way and they are specifically for orchids. But then there are other pots that have holes all over the side. Sometimes they're only made of plastic, which stands up only if you fill it. And that is for root pruning. Air prunes roots. Roots do not grow in air, for the majority of plants. There are always exceptions in horticulture, but for the majority of plants we grow, once those roots hit the air, they will die. And new roots will sprout behind that dead part. Raising them would create an environment where it's just dry air. And that would prevent the roots from growing down the bottom of the trough. At least the ones I have are actually raised up a little bit, but the sides go down to the ground. And so, by setting it on the soil, you would have this nice humid environment and roots could grow in that. So you need to raise it up so that air can flow underneath that trough.
Farmer Fred 07:11
Now I would think if you're depending on that one side hole for drainage, you would have to make sure. Bring out your big level and make sure that the water is going to flow in that direction.
Debbie Flower 07:20
Well, I didn't do that. I do see that my initial intention was to put them on on wood and I didn't have that at the time, and we filled them in. And as the questioner knows, they get very heavy when they're full of media, especially wet media. But we did dump one out of the bamboo. When bamboo flowers it dies. And then you get new bamboos from seed. And that happened to mine, to one of mine. The bamboo flowered and died. And I got all these strange bamboos from seed and they were small, and they did not stand upright, they they hung over the side of the pot. And it was just not what I wanted. I'm using this trough full of bamboo to create some shade on the house and block a view from the house. And it wasn't doing that job. So we bought a new bamboo and dumped out the old, the trough with the old bamboo in it. Now what in the bamboo case it is stems and roots of the previous bamboo that had died went all the way to the bottom. In fact, they were concentrated on the bottom of the trough, where most of the moisture built up. So for bamboos, they liked that little wet spot.
Farmer Fred 08:39
I use these watering troughs for blueberries because you can better control the soil mix because blueberries like a very acid soil. So I use my magical blueberry soil mix, which isn't that magical, and everybody knows what it is, I think, by now. It consists of 1/3 peat moss, 1/3 Camellia Rhododendron Azalea potting mix, and 1/3 small bark, Let's call it walk-on bark. And mix the three together, throw in a handful of soil sulfur and you have a pH of 5.5. And the blueberries thrive in that environment. Now, on mine I did put one inch drain holes on the bottom, about five of them, and also raised them up, like I said, about four inches. That made it a lot easier to put in the drip irrigation tubing, the quarter inch tubes, up through one of the holes, and drape it over the top until I filled in. And then I had the tubes ready to go, and I put little sprayers on there and they lived happily ever after. But I also painted the stainless (galvanized) steel watering troughs and for that, the best paint to get is to go to a Tractor Supply Store, or a good ag supply store and get tractor paint and tractor primer. Now the thing with tractor paint is you're limited to a few colors. There's Kubota orange, there's Ford blue, there's John Deere green. There's International Harvester red. I think there's one more. I think mine are International Harvester red. And that did bring down the temperature of where the pots were. And it looks nice, it blended in better with the yard, as well, because these troughs were six feet long by two feet wide by three feet high.
Debbie Flower 10:29
Yes, I've seen your troughs and they do look nice. I did not paint mine. And when you buy a trough, one of mine has a giant logo painted on the side. Like it covers the whole side of the trough. It's only in black, which is okay. And then they all have a sticker on them somewhere that I can't get off. That's in red, white and blue. I think. So it's not as pretty as just a plain trough might be, or a painted trough would be.
Farmer Fred 10:59
Kathy has other questions, too, that that bear asking. One is putting wheels on it. No. It's too heavy. You would want to put, I don't know, motorcycle wheels on it.
Debbie Flower 11:11
The wheels would have to be very big and very strong. Yeah, yes. And there's not a lot of structure on the bottom of those. When I read that, I thought you might end up caving the center in, if the wheels were attached to not the sidewalls but the bottom. There's not a lot of structure under there. And so I was afraid it might actually cause the bottom of the trough to break.
Farmer Fred 11:36
Yeah, they could. Now maybe set it all on a furniture dolly.
Debbie Flower 11:40
Yes. Or use a pallet and they'd have to be big wheels because they have to take wheels. They're gonna have to take a whole lot of weight. How many pounds, 500?
Farmer Fred 11:51
Actually, I like your idea. I mean, we could do pallets like you do with giant pumpkins. You put the pallet under the pumpkin and then when it's harvest time, you bring in the the forklift to move them. You could do that with your troughs.
Debbie Flower 12:08
Yes, you can use the pallet as the base and put the wheels under on the bottom side of the pallet. Just make sure that those wheels can handle the amount of weight.
Farmer Fred 12:15
No, don't put wheels. Just get out just get a forklift!
Debbie Flower 12:19
Well, that's for those of us who have forklifts. We don't need the wheels. But if you do want to move them around, all my other container plants I do try to have on wheels because I do move them around, even just to clean up around them, sweep out the leaves and that sort of thing. But I did not do it with my troughs.
Farmer Fred 12:43
We're glad to have Smart Pots on board supporting the Garden Basics podcast. Smart Pots are the original, award-winning fabric planter. They're sold worldwide. Smart Pots are proudly made 100% in the USA. I'm pretty picky about who I allow to advertise on this program. My criteria, though, is pretty simple. It has to be a product I like; a product I use; a product I would buy again. And Smart Pots clicks all those boxes. They're durable. They're reusable. Smart Pots are available at independent garden centers and select Ace and True Value stores nationwide. To find a store near you visit SmartPots.com slash Fred. It's Smart Pots, the original award winning fabric planter. go to SmartPots dot com slash Fred for more info and that special Farmer Fred discount on your next Smart Pot purchase, go to SmartPots.com slash Fred.
Farmer Fred 13:42
Let's get back to our conversation with Debbie Flower about water trough gardening: Kathy also asks about putting soil cloth on the bottom to help keep the soil in after she drilled some water drain holes through it. You actually tackled this question very wisely on another subject I think it had to do with, I forget what it had to do with, but basically it was just put a layer or two of newspaper on the bottom and then that will hold in the initial dirt in the pot. And by the time it deteriorates, that soil will have coagulated to the point where it won't go flowing out the holes.
Debbie Flower 14:23
Right? We really don't want layers of anything in a pot because it changes the water relations. Water takes the path of least resistance and when the texture of whatever it meets up with changes, the water will stop. I realize she's talking about a piece of soil cloth right in the bottom, but drain holes are there for drainage. Yeah. And that actually is a change in texture too. But if you put the layer of soil cloth in the bottom, the water will move down through the soil. Which is is soilless media at this point to that cloth and then it will stop. And it will have to fill up the entire trough media with water before it will push out through that soil cloth. So it costs money. It's made of probably oil; plastic is not the most environmental thing. And yes, the only reason you're going to need it is to stop that initial, loose, really loose soil you're putting in initially from going out those holes. So newspaper would be a really good choice there.
Farmer Fred 15:33
How many layers of newspaper would you use?
Debbie Flower 15:35
Three or four? Okay. It's not a lot.
Farmer Fred 15:39
No, and it'll break down in a couple of months.
Debbie Flower 15:41
Yes.
Farmer Fred 15:42
Very quickly, more than likely. All right. And then we come to the Hamburger Helper of potting soil, and that's styrofoam peanuts. And I've heard this before, and I've seen people do it. And I've seen tipped over planters because the bottom third was filled with styrofoam peanuts, and all the soil was on top and a wind comes along and boom, down goes the pot. And this would go back to your argument that anytime water meets a foreign substance that it isn't used to, things come to a halt.
Debbie Flower 16:11
Right. So you're shortening the rooting zone by putting anything in the bottom, styrofoam peanuts included. The only place I'm aware of where that is used with any regularity is the interior landscaping business, when the decorative pot is huge, deep. And media costs more than the free styrofoam peanuts that came packed in you know, some delivery box. And so yes, you would have to put weight in the bottom of that. And then they could fill the void. I've heard of also using milk cartons, milk jugs with the lids on, just to take up space. But in an interior scaping like that typically the plant in the top is in its own pot anyway. And it has a limited root system. In this case when you're outdoors with these quite stable, but quite large troughs. Take advantage of all the root zone that you have if you're going to have healthier plants that are going to be easier to maintain. If you do not put any styrofoam peanuts or anything else in part of the bottom. So basically no to the styrofoam.
Farmer Fred 17:18
Yes. And something that you answered before. But let's reinforce this for Kathy, she talked about: how much potting soil should I be putting in there. And if I want to add several inches of mulch on top, and both of us have experienced that, perhaps a year or two after adding the original mix that you probably had a lot of natural organic components, that tended to break down and it sank a few inches.
Debbie Flower 17:43
Yes, it does do that. And that's very common in in any kind of container growing. She's wise to think about that. Because you do want, it's called headroom, you do want some space between the soil and the top of the pot. Initially, you want to when you water container media, you want to flood the entire surface of the container of the entire surface of that media, because the media drains very well and the water goes straight down. So if you haven't gotten any water to that corner of the pot, there won't be any water in that corner of the pot. So she's very wise to think about not filling it to the tippy top, but it will shrink some inches. So yes, I think mine shrunk probably two inches for sure. And my my, I think my pots or my troughs, standard depths, whatever, two feet, something like that deep. Yes, she might fill it to within an inch or two inches of the top and then put a little bit of mulch probably two inches would be the best so that you have headroom and mulch room and then it will shrink some more and you can put more mulch on top over time.
Farmer Fred 18:50
And that's primarily dealing with annuals. If you have a permanent crop in there such as blueberries for example, and the media is sinking, you don't want to add more mulch later on, two or three inches more, because you'd be basically suffocating the crown of those plants.
Debbie Flower 19:11
Right? That's absolutely true. I was thinking that. I had this picture in my head and as I was saying, add more later that yes, you better not put it around the trunks of things like blueberries, they will suffocate from that process. Yes, right.
Farmer Fred 19:28
But if it's annuals, no big deal. Because when you do the changeover, go ahead and mix in more compost and worm castings, or whatever you want.
Debbie Flower 19:37
Right. If you're going to use this trough to plant, let's say, your vegetable garden, your annual vegetable garden or your seasonal vegetable garden, then every time you take one crop out, you're going to want to dig some more nutrition and organic matter of larger size into that container to refresh that media. Exactly.
Farmer Fred 19:56
We talked about it in one episode, about you using old potting soil again. That one of the things that happens with old potting soil, it doesn't have much nitrogen in it. So you need to add nitrogen. So maybe if you are growing say summer vegetables in these troughs, and they're not doing diddley say between October and April. Why not grow a nitrogen fixing crop in there for the winter, a cover crop.
Debbie Flower 20:21
Mm hmm Yes. So a bean of some sort or a vetch. There have been studies that actually say if you grow a winter cover crop of vetch, or it might be a very late winter, very early spring cover crop depending on where you live. Because it needs some, some warmth to grow. You can plant your tomatoes right through it and they do very well.
Farmer Fred 20:45
Yeah, as long as you don't let it get out of control.
Debbie Flower 20:47
Yes, it can take off. Yes, it's a vining plant. Yes, yes. Yes, there are others, like clovers and fava beans, and other things that you can grow that will fix nitrogen and the roots themselves add organic matter and open up spaces for air and water. So, cover crops are an excellent idea.
Farmer Fred 21:05
So being from New Jersey, what would you use as a winter cover crop in New Jersey?
Debbie Flower 21:11
We didn't grow anything. We just let it fallow. We always had a compost pile, not a hot one, just a lazy man's compost pile. And every spring we put some of that into the soil.
Farmer Fred 21:24
If you live in an area, then, that isn't conducive to growing a winter cover crop, then I guess one idea might be to put a nice, fine, high quality compost in there, top it off, and let the winter weather sort of let it percolate into the soil.
Debbie Flower 21:40
Right. Or even your leaves chopped up here. Yeah, would be very helpful. They provide the organic matter, you don't need nitrogen in winter. So the nitrogen fixing crops would fix the nitrogen or bring it into the soil during winter, but they don't give it away to other plants until they die. So they would provide fertilizer in the form of nitrogen when the plants needed in the spring, an organic matter breakdown. Same thing, you're not going to get a lot of nitrogen out of it. But what you do get will be available after it's broken down and that'll be in the spring.
Farmer Fred 22:12
I'm a big fan of using oak leaves. I even went out and bought a mulching lawnmower. I don't have a lawn.
Debbie Flower 22:21
So what do you do?
Farmer Fred 22:23
Oh, it's easy with oak leaves, you just pile them up and then run them over with the mulching mower and that grinds them up a lot smaller than what I was doing, which was putting them in a metal trashcan and then sticking my weed whacker down in there and grinding them up that way. That works, but it's not as efficient as a mulching mower going over it and grinding it up.
Debbie Flower 22:48
Okay, we we don't have a lawn that we mow either. But we did get one of those....you've talked to the vendor. It like looks like a blower, a lawn blower, but it sucks. It's a vacuum.
Farmer Fred 23:01
Yeah, the Vac n Sac. .
Debbie Flower 23:04
And it grinds the leaves and then I use that. And I haven't compared it insides to other ways of mulching the least. But it was a nice, fairly small size. You couldn't recognize the leaf you didn't know it was oak leaves when you look at it, so it's shredded up enough that it doesn't look like an oak leaf. And so that was a really good size to put on the garden over the winter.
Farmer Fred 23:25
Exactly. If you have just whole oak leaves sitting on your garden bed for the winter. It takes them too long to break down they probably won't break down and they might create an anaerobic environment.
Debbie Flower 23:38
Right. Same with lawn clippings, clippings fresh off the lawn. If you just pile them up, they will create an anaerobic environment and water will just shut off at the top. You can't use them fresh as mulch in the garden.
Farmer Fred 23:51
Right. "Anaerobic" meaning that air and water can't get into the soil. And soil, by the way, needs air and water.
Debbie Flower 23:58
Right. Roots need air and water. Yes.
Farmer Fred 24:00
So the smaller you get those oakleaf pieces, the quicker it can get to the job of feeding the soil basically,
Debbie Flower 24:07
Yes. and preventing weeds, weeds from germinating, that kind of thing.
Farmer Fred 24:11
Boy, that was a long answer to talking about growing in watering troughs or horse troughs, but well worth it. More and more people are using them. And I think it's a fine idea.
Debbie Flower 24:21
I agree. It expands your gardening space.
Farmer Fred 24:24
Debbie Flower, Thanks for your help on this.
Debbie Flower 24:26
Thank you, Fred.
Farmer Fred 24:32
The Garden Basics with Farmer Fred podcast has a lot of information posted at each episode: transcripts, links to any products or books mentioned during the show, and other helpful links for even more information. Plus, you can listen to just the portions of the show that interest you, it’s been divided into easily accessible chapters. Plus you’ll find more information about how to get in touch with us. Leave an audio question without making a phone call via Speakpipe, at speak pipe dot com slash gardenbasics. it’s easy, give it a try. And you just might hear your voice on the Garden Basics podcast! If you’re listening to us via Apple podcasts, put your question in the Ratings and Reviews section. Text us the question and pictures, or leave us your question at: 916-292-8964.916-292-8964. E-mail: fred@farmerfred.com . If you tell us where you’re from, that will help us greatly to accurately answer your garden questions. Because all gardening is local. In the show notes you’ll find links to all our social media outlets, including facebook, instagram, twitter, and youtube. Also, a link to the farmerfred.com website. And thanks for listening.
Farmer Fred 25:59
Recently, I was talking about citrus trees with fruit tree expert Ed Laivo, and I was mentioning my citrus trees that I have planted on a slope. I thought that was a good idea. He though, offered some warnings about planting citrus on slopes. I have found I have been having good luck with my row of citrus trees because they're on a slope. So there's no chance of standing water.
Ed Laivo 26:25
Well, I'll tell you what, that can work in your favor sometimes. I was down in Los Gatos. I was doing some consultation work a couple of years ago, in this very beautiful home down there. And they had all their fruit trees planted on the side of a very steep slope, okay. And they said, Oh, well, you know, as a matter of fact, you know, the drainage is good because we've got them planted on a slope. Well, this is California. And a lot of times the lay of the land, the actual contour the land runs against the slope. And sure enough, when I started to take core samples out of their fruit tree areas in the side of the hill, what did I find? Giant mud pockets. Yeah, yeah, their trees were suffering. And so what we decided to do because these trees were older, and they'd been struggling, they just never thrived. We decided to run drain channels into the side of the hill, large pipes that actually allowed the water to drain out. I don't know whether that worked or not because really my advice to them was, you should start over and terrace out the side of your hill and then put raised beds on the side of the hill. That was my recommendation.
Farmer Fred 27:43
Garden Basics comes out every Tuesday and Friday and is brought to you by Smart Pots. It’s available just about anywhere podcasts are handed out. And that includes Apple podcasts, I Heart Radio, Spotify, Stitcher, Overcast, Podcast Addict, CastBox and Google podcasts. And for Northern California gardeners, check out this podcast: the Green Acres Garden Podcast with Farmer Fred, also available wherever you get your podcasts. Thank you for listening, subscribing and leaving comments. We appreciate it.
