What will grow well in raingutters?

I know I'm running a little late here, but I JUST ordered the seeds for my garden. Unfortunately because of my procrastination they were sold out of Tonda Di Parigi carrot seeds.

The carrots were going to be grown in 3' long pieces of raingutter. I will have four of these mini-beds, and was PLANNING on planting half in mixed mesclun greens and half in carrots.

Other than herbs, (since I have PLENTY of garden space allotted to herbs already) what else might be well suited to skinny little shallow rows? I'm in zone 4... so I'm looking for annual goodies only.

 

chives is a good one but they do tend to take over, mint, baby potatoes, there are alot of spices and herbs you can grow

 

was wondering how on earth you were gonna be able to grow carrots in such a shallow depth until i looked up the variety of carrot you wanted to sow in them, having never heard of that variety before, but what cute carrots they are, will have to put them on my list for next year, thanks for mentioning them:2thumbsup:
sorry i can't think of any suggestions for you for things to grow in the raingutters though, apart from salad leaves, would have thought the shallowness would have excluded most things and guessing that youd maybe need drought tolerant stuff assuming your using the guttering horizontally

 

Hmmm, I know you said annuals only, but what about some strawberry plants? I leave mine out through winter and they have survived. Other than that i'd be thinking salad leaves too.

I have seen another use for guttering, which is to plant seeds in it to be kept up out of the reach of mice, then when they are a bit bigger, you can just dig a trench and slide out all the seedlings and soil into it. This way the roots arent distrubed at all. Stops the mice and slugs getting the young seedlings.

 

Maybe watercress...

Peace,
poor_old_dad

 

Weeds grow well in my rain gutters...

 

Yeah, evidence of my negligence grows really well in my rain gutters.

 

lettuce

 

carrots need deep soil to grow well in. They have deep taproots that also allow them to survive dry spells. Otherwise they end up with mis-formed and sideways roots. I also notice your posts are more popular than mine. Congratulations, i suppose.

 

Thanks everyone! I'll have to try for lettuce & maybe a cress next year. Hopefully I can get my carrot seeds in time as well but I s'pose we'll have to see.

I would LOVE to try strawberries - but the roots freeze so they end up being an annual for me. I don't have anywhere at all suitable to letting them sit overwinter that wouldn't cause this and it breaks my heart to "kill" a plant intentionally.

 

I have a friend who is growing cucumbers in her raingutters

 

I, too, was going to suggest strawberries. However, from past experience, depending on the soil itself and whether or not you get rain (I'm in California, mountains), they'll need a lot of extra water. Maybe if the gutters were stacked in such a way that you could fill up the lower gutter with water and use it as a kind of Earth Box, ya know what I mean?

Lettuces absolutely will grow very well. Beans, like bush beans, I'm not so sure, I think that space might be too constricted for them.

Can you get fenugreek seeds? The seeds I get from my local health food shop are always VERY viable, in fact they germinate in two days when it's quite cool. The greens are edible, and they're supposed to be good as a cover crop as well, just like clover and legumes.

I'm in USDA Zone 7... or is it 8? Sunset West Zone 7b (never gets below 10*F in winter).