Rain Gutter Grow System - as a raised bed

[luigiwu]

I was asked to start this thread so I hope it helps someone. I am not a expert gardener by any means. I truly believe the only way I've been able to garden is due to that fact that I take "me" out of the equation. The plants don't rely on me to supply them with water. The RGGS (rain gutter grow system) is the brain child of Larry Hall. The heart of the system is to have a water supply (either as a rain gutter or a kiddie pool) that has a constant level of water (controlled by a float), so that the plants in a soil-less peat-based mix can take up as much of the water as they need, when they need it.

SO much good info on Larry Hall's youtube channel. There is only one other tomatovillian here, Ricman, that I know uses this system and his results are AMAZING:
http://tomatoville.com/showthread.php?t=33037

So this thread is about taking the basic principles and pushing to see how I could grow super efficiently in a shallow bed that is totally self-watering. I'm copying the rest of below from the original thread:

I basically made a frame out of wood with two intermediate supports/bracing (so 8 ft long with 2 supports at thirds.) I then rolled out hardware cloth and cut weed fabric of the same size. I stapled the hardware cloth with the weed fabric (facing inside of the raised bed,) along the sides of the initial wood frame. Marked out my net cup spacing, probably every 12 inches, traced the net cup and with tin snips, cut out the circle of the hardware cloth (and the weed fabric.) It allows "air-pruning" which is how you can grow in not a lot of depth. I had HUGE kale and broccolo spigarello growing in this raised bed rggs too!

The whole thing sits over a typical rggs gutter rig (in my case, I used a 4-inch pvc pipe - buy the drain pipes, much much cheaper) that is supported by a wood frame, with the net cups dipping into water supply/pvc pipe (but can also be a gutter.)

Below: the bottom view of a typical rggs "rig" - typically a wood frame to support a water trough for sub-irrigation (either pvc pipe or gutter)


Below: the rig turned right side up again.


Below: and perhaps a better picture that shows how the weed fabric with the hardware cloth is stapled to the raised bed frame (to hold the soil)



Below: and this is my more "traditional" non-shallow rggs This is my own personal design that is a "twin" rig. It allows me to build a support system for plants to climb upwards as I'm so limited in yard space being in a city and all.