I thought this was a good enough idea to bring back to Garden Web, and figured it could be best used by the small space gardeners. I wonder how it would work as a standing strawberry garden?

Make a column out of 1" chickenwire, 3ft high and 15-16 inches in diameter. You'll need 5ft of 3ft-wide chickenwire, allowing for a 1ft overlap. Fasten it with twists of thin wire. Line the inside with corrugated cardboard from cardboard boxes.

Stand it up on end, hold a 4"-diameter plastic plumbing pipe in the middle and fill the pipe with sand and stones (builder's gravel for concrete is ideal). Fill the rest of the column around the pipe with good soil, packed down enough to prevent it sinking too much later (but not too tightly -- don't compact it). Carefully remove the pipe.

Cut slits 2-3" long through the cardboard in a spiral going round the column from top to bottom. The spiral should go round the column 6 or 7 times, with 6-8" between the slits, making about 50 slits or more.

The sand and stone core is for watering -- water will sink right to the bottom and then spread out to the sides. After you've watered it it will sink a little; top up with more soil and sand.

Plant leaf vegetable and salad crop seedlings through the slits. Water every few days.

This gives a growing area of 12 square feet occupying a very small space. Make sure you put it where it will get enough light, or supplement natural sunlight with growing lamps.

You can make a few columns -- plant them about two weeks apart for a steady harvest throughout the growing season. Five will give an average family lots of delicious, fresh, green vegetables.