Gutter Planters

Want to increase your growing space without adding to the footprint of your garden? If you have a cattle panel garden arch, gutter planters are a perfect fit.

I have two cattle panel arches in my garden and I made gutter planters for both of them. If you would like more info on making a cattle panel arch, check out this post. They work best for growing shallow rooted plants like strawberries, lettuce, pansies, etc.

Root vegetables are not a good idea with the gutter planters as they don't have enough depth.

You can make your own gutter planters out of vinyl gutters from the big box home improvement stores. Vinyl gutters typically come in 10 foot lengths and can be cut with tin snips or a hack saw.

I cut the 10 foot gutters into 40 inch sections with a hack saw after trying the tin snips. I found the hack saw to be much easier. Each 10 foot gutter yields three 40 inch planters. I purchased two 10 foot gutters so that I would have a total of 6 planters.

Cattle panels are 50 inches wide, so the 40 inch length fits perfectly.

Once you have cut your gutters, you will need to add end caps. Two end caps per gutter and you need to make sure you pick out a left end cap and a right end cap for each gutter planter, as they are not universal.

The end caps are easy to install; they simply slide on the ends of the gutters. They are lined to prevent leaks.

I used a drill bit and drilled holes in the bottom of the gutters for drainage. The size doesn’t really matter, but keep in mind that too small of holes and it likely won’t drain well and too large and you may lose soil out the bottom.

The next step is to attach hooks to the planters. The more hooks the less the planter will lean away from the arch. I attached three hooks to each planter and felt that the planters still leaned too far off the panel once I filled them with soil. I didn’t want to add more hooks so to remedy the lean, I use reusable zip ties. I combine two zip ties to make one long one and then wrap the two all the way around the planter and pull it snug up to the cattle panel.

The hooks (they can be found by searching "rope or tarp" hooks) have two holes for screws and I used washers and 3/4” machine screws and nuts to affix the hooks to the planters. You can hold the hook up to the planter and mark where to drill holes for the screws. I've linked these hooks here.

I fill the planters with either soil3 veggie mix or Fox Farms Coco Loco and then plant strawberries year round, lettuce in the fall and spring, pansies in the winter and really any other shallow rooted plant I want.

One nice benefit of the planters being under the arch, is if you grow a vining plant over the arch, you can plant lettuce in the planters during the summer when it is usually too hot for lettuce. The vines provide a decent amount of shade for the lettuce to keep it cooler than in an open/full sun garden bed. Keep in mind, these gutter planters can dry out quickly and will need to be watered frequently.

I have had my gutter planters for 3 years now and they are still going strong.

**The links provided in this post contain affiliate links and I receive a small percentage from the brand company. This does not raise the cost for you, it is paid fully by the brand. These small earnings help fund my garden endeavors and make it worth spending the time to put together posts like these.