It does sound like a good idea, and I would try it, but the missus would most likely have a stroke when she sees a bucket sitting in a corner somewhere, leaking or not.

Use at least a 2" hole saw to space your plant holes around the bucket. With bucket upside down, cut out whatever space you want for the new 'top.' You might want to add your soil mix to the first level of your plant holes, plant and add the next soil layer, etc.

If you do not have a matching lid, but have a soiled area where your up-ended bucket can be secured from running animals or humans, you would probably be able to do with less hand watering. Good luck!

These ones were made from stacked pots, using recycling some of our cracked plastic pots.

This one was made by using a hole saw to cut holes in a 50 gallon plastic barrel. By the end of the summer you couldn't even seed the drum anymore.

We also had one where we put holes in an office size plastic waste basket. I don't have a photo of that but it worked great.

The link below goes to more photos of our strawberry planters and most of the photos have some comments about how we made them.

And yes, a 5 gallon bucket would be a great way to do this.

Lynda

Time for more coffee.

Lynda