The reasoning behind this is to lessen the chance of moulds and viruses, and to gather clean fruit untouched by pet or wildlife urine. For us, that is tomcats and raccoons. You can see slugs easily, not that any got up the vines on the plant last year.
We want containers that are cheap and easy to clean after the season and we have re-purposed lumber for posts, and plant hangers used for various things over 20 years. We also included circular bits of landscape cloth at the bottom of each pot to stabilize the plants and keep soil from leaking.
David used a 1" cutting spindle to do the cntre of each bucket and I drilled the 1/4" drainage holes, about 8 to a container. We bought transplants (Early Cascade) and eased them through the cloth and out the bse of the buckets.
To avoid soil problems we purchased bags of suitable transplant mix and tamped it in carefully as the container hung on a plant holder. At the top I added tiny tomato plants (Tumbling Tom) and a couple of marigolds as companion plants.
They're in a spot which gets full sun all day.
I keep a watering can with rainwater at the base of one of the poles. Hope this works for a second year, I walk by here severl times a year so it's convenient for the barn and the house.
