Creative container gardening

My father in law who lives in Italy is a bit of homesteading enthusiast like myself. He wants the whole nine yards of chickens and sheep and big garden. But since he is in his mid 70's (yes, he still has a full head of dark hair) that's probably not going to happen. But he does live in the countryside, so access to farm fresh eggs and meat and veggies are all around him. He does however have a small garden. When we went to Italy last year all he had were some plastic containers and a small raised bed. This year though he has done something quite clever which I want to share with you.

Winter and spring in Italy tends to get a lot of rain and the soil is often water logged. So much so that it's difficult not to have your plants get over-watered. So being the ingenious builder that he is my father in law built this container garden from very large terra cotta rain gutters.

He built it on the side of their driveway and it runs pretty much the whole length. No pun intended, but it has really great drainage. It's also accessible to him standing up, so he doesn't have to do any bending over as he has a bad knee.

I hope you enjoy his creativity!