I just bought a water trough on Craigslist. It's not as deep as I was hoping to get. It's one of the oblong galvanized metal troughs, and is about 4'9" long, 2' wide, and about 1' deep. Before I start scavenging and purchasing planting mediums for it, I need to decide how to use it. I have a few thoughts:

1) Blueberries. We tend to have alkaline soil here, so I could use peat in this container and make a nice acid soil for the blueberries.

2) Watermelon and/or pumpkins. I don't have room for long vines in my main garden, but I could put this on our concrete patio and let the vines sprawl as much as they want.

3) Strawberries. I imagine I'd have less trouble with slugs this way, but I've also been thinking about doing strawberries in hanging buckets.

4) General veg - I have a space I could put this between my raised beds in the main garden. It would be easy to access and I could grow lots of smaller veggies and herbs that I frequently use - basil, jalapenos, lettuce, etc., and it could have perfect, rock-free soil for root crops.

Is there any chance I could turn this into an Earthtainer? I'm not sure if it's deep enough at 12", but I haven't done much reading on how to construct them. I've just seen them made out of the Rubbermaid containers...

Thanks for any input, I want to put this to good use!