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One of my favorite times of the year is late May to early June when my garden is planted.  My strawberries start bearing.  It is funny my family that wants no part of gardening  suddenly start watching that first strawberry ripen.  Then its a race for who gets to eat it first.

This year my young grandsons wanted to grow their own strawberries.  unfortunately they live in a place where having a garden isn’t really an option.  So ole Nana got to thinking.  I thought well they could have a strawberry pot.   Well sort of…..  I thought I was smart and had an original idea.  I have an abundance of empty cat litter buckets lying around.  Why couldn’t I use one of these buckets.  I had this great plan in mind get a bucket drill some big holes add a piece of pipe down the center for watering.  I got on you tube just kind of searching……turns out my original idea wasn’t so original  Someone else had my original idea already.  I wasn’t as smart as I thought I was.

I set out to make this cat litter strawberry  bucket thingy with the boys helping.  (O my…Nana what were you thinking.)  We gathered the materials.  Here is a list:

Cat litter bucket, spray paint, drill, hole saw, drill bits, pvc pipe, landscape fabric, soil and strawberry plants.  I didn’t purchase anything for this it was all stuff I had lying around or in my husbands garage.

I made the boys bucket and was so pleased I thought I would make another one and do a blog on it.  So I called up one of my garden buddies Waynette.  She came over and took pictures  and lending a hand when needed.  When we finished  Waynette wanted one so we found a bucket for her painted it and drilled holes in bucket and the pipe.  The rest she was going to finish it at home.

To make one of these start out with a clean dry bucket, drill 5 holes on each side with the hole saw.

 

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 Cathy is drilling holes in the bucket

 

Spray paint bucket.

 

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Bucket after spray painting

 

While paint dries use smaller drill bit and drill holes in pvc pipe.

 

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pvc pipe with watering holes drilled in.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Line bucket with landscape fabric.

 

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lining the bucket with landscape fabric

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Have someone hold pipe in center of bucket while you add some soil up to first set of holes.  Take strawberry plant and insert it roots first into the holes. Fan out roots inside of bucket leaving the top of the plant hanging out.

 

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inserting the plants threw the holes and into the soil.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Add more soil up to the next holes, repeat the layering process until bucket is full.

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Cathy adding the next layer of soil

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On top of soil in the bucket I fill the top with plants.

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Adding the plants to the top of the bucket

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Now water the plants pouring water into the pipe in the center.  At this point I would suggest watering it well.  I used compost tea to give the plants a boost.

 

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The finished bucket! With Cathy’s beautiful greenhouse in the back ground!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There you have it, the finished product.  We inserted 25 plants in this bucket.  Should produce lots of berries !!

 

 

Cathy Lackey, UK, UT Master Gardener

Waynette Harness, UT Master Gardener