Stock Tank Gardening
About this episode
The episode discusses the practicality of using steel watering troughs as gardening containers with insights from Master Gardener Gail Pothour.
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit gardenbasics.substack.com Some passersby or visitors might think you have a yard full of shiny coffins in your front or backyard. OK, using large steel cattle watering troughs as gardening containers might not appeal to those who heed form and design before function. But that staple of rural areas for supplying water to horses, cattle, and sheep is also damn practical for the gardener looking to remain more upright while working with food and flower crops. Opting for watering troughs as large garden containers also helps avoid vexing in-ground soil issues such as perpetually soggy clay soil, rocks, thin soil, as well as soil that might be rife with pests (hello, gophers!) and soil-borne diseases such as verticillium wilt, nematodes, fusarium and more. Besides, you can mute the “coffin comments” by prettying them up…with the right paint. In today’s newsletter podcast, we talk with Sacramento County Master Gardener Gail Pothour about using steel watering troughs as large containers for food and flowers. Not only does she have them in her own yard, she and her fellow Master Gardeners at the vegetable section of the Fair…
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