Gardening Supplies

How to Turn a Feeding Trough into a Planter | Ask This Old House



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How to Turn a Feeding Trough into a Planter | Ask This Old House
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47 Comments

  1. They should have used wood (like you use for firewood, not dimensional lumber)as filler underneath instead of those styro peanuts ! Hilarious

  2. Anyone who does this better check their packing peanuts. Many today dissolve in water and are meant to be biodegradable. That would be terrible to do all that work and have you plant drop 1-2 feet

  3. "this trough is 3 feet deep"

    Considering it only goes up to their knees then they must be about 9 feet tall.

    Or…… the trough is like 20 inches.

  4. The arborvitae will grow nice and tall, but it does require a regular trimming routine if you want it to look nice.

  5. I have two stock-water tank planters behind our garage. Packing peanuts are an awful idea. I used them in the first iteration of my planters, but they just didn't work that well. Using inverted empty plant pots or milk jugs would probably work better. Now, I have expanded sheet metal grid secured to perimeter of the tank about half-way up, leaving about 50 gallons of water storage under the soil in each tank. There is landscape fabric atop the grid, and rope wicks to help draw moisture back into the soil. I plumbed each tank with a fill port, an overflow siphon to keep water level from getting too high, and a drainage plug that I open up when the season is over. Last summer had relatively consistent rain, and the tanks produced bags of tomatillos and peppers without having to water the plants at all.

  6. All the "it's toxic" comments make me chuckle.

    Polystyrene is non-toxic. Proven so over 30 years of international peer reviewed studies regarding toxicology and public safety. However, many compounds used to make such styrenes are toxic and/or carcinogenic. Improperly made products can have trace quantities of such compounds. Even then, agencies like the FDA still qualify 'it' as food safe. You'd have to eat a comical amount of it to even have a small chance of toxicity or cancer. Still certainly less than smoking or other activities, products, foods, we don't bat an eyelash at.

    With that said… it's a hilariously bad method of filler for this purpose. Won't take much time for that to migrate up through the bedding. It'll take a half a millennia, if at all, for that stuff to degrade. There's a reason it's hard to find (as they even mentioned in the end, what is confounding to me that they still used it).

  7. Take it to a local spray foam insulator company and have them spray it. once it expands and hardens drill your drainage wholes.

  8. Using a galvanized water trough is the worst thing to use for your plants. The zinc that is used in the making of the tank will kill the plants over time.

  9. Despite all these creative comments I still believe you guys are highly informative. It's a great video. Thanks

  10. Glad Jen is getting into the mix. Roger looks likes he needs a hip replacement or just had one – favoring his left leg pretty hardcore. Us fans really do love the guy, really want him to be good and healthy!

  11. I am really disappointed Jen decided to use styrofoam peanuts in this way. It is not an environmentally friendly solution at all, and is a bad thing to recommend to the thousands of viewers who may also decide to do this as a "lightweight drainage solution". What happens when these people change their mind about this planter or decide to move? Or the plants die, and they don't want to look at an ugly metal tank in front of their house anymore? Guess where all that styrofoam is going to end up when they take down this planter? Into the garbage! Into a landfill or end up in the ocean, or who knows. There is a reason this styrofoam was hard to find and is being outlawed in many states, and it is not very wise to demonstrate using it for a gardening project. This stuff needs to stop being used for every application! Jen could have raised up the soil using milk crates or concrete blocks or a treated wooden frame, anything else!

  12. Half of those evergreens will be dead in six months. They are not hardy in Tennessee. Good ideas but I would have done a different plant 🙂

  13. The use of styrofoam peanuts is damaging to the environment. This material cannot be recycled and does not degrade. Should have found a material that was friendly to the environment. Very disappointed in TOH.

  14. Styrofoam??? Can't you be more environmentally friendly? We really need to be conscious of our choices if we want to save the earth.

  15. I'd love to get one and cut the whole bottom out. I'm hoping to find one that has NO bottom in it at a store by me called "Rural King".

    that way the worms can get into all the soil and poop in it, worm poop is GREAT plant food. I guess that IF you do NOT cover the holes with the screen, worms can still come in, just avoid the packing peanuts. The non breaking down type anyway. I just HOPE it will fit in my car, IF NOT, I'll have to bug my friend with a truck. I have a Kia SOUL, it has a decent sized hatchback space.

  16. I'm a botanist and styrofoam packing peanuts will inhibit plant growth. The styrofoam is toxic, it's been studied and plants grow better without polystyrene. Ideally giving the plant roots as much soil depth as you can is the best way, but you could use crushed milk bottles as somebody commented. Also, when you want to put in new soil or move the pot the styrofoam is a mess to deal with.

  17. Styrofoam in your garden? What do you do when you're done? put the WHOLE GARDEN IN A LANDFILL?!

  18. Here is a question was considering this for a raised garden this year in SC. We have fire ants and they get into everything. Never fails I uncover one in my gardens (vegetables.) How can I stop them from invading this type of garden

  19. A good planter idea. That “stock” tanker has a galvanized coating on it giving it the the silver color. Be sure to coat the bare metal from drilling the hole with some paint. You could use an automotive paint pen or some Rustoleum paint primer to prevent the bottom rusting out…
    Ron

  20. Please don’t use packing peanuts. They ruin the environment. Also using packing peanuts in the bottom of a planter will only create problems when it rains.

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