Successful, vertical, high yield urban gardening for terraces, balconies and lawns
I think in part 1 of this series I forgot to write how we can all benefit from having 1, 2, 3 or more vertical plant containers. Actually, I found that 1 - 3 containers can supply a goodly amount of organic culinary herbs and some vegetables which are great for our health as even smallest quantities of nutrients will benefit and replenish our body.
We have 20 containers and they supply most of our fruit and vegetables which makes us independent from supermarkets and that ranks high on my list because we will never know how inflation or currency problems can influence us world-wide.
My anarchist brain says: "Whoever "they" are can only rule us if we are very, very hungry!" So I make sure we have a stacked larder and fresh meat, fruit, veggies and nuts growing to see us through bad times.
Also, it's very little work once the vertical containers are set up.
So here we go:
Obviously you can use any large containers, but I found the tall laundry baskets with all those holes cut in already, the most useful. And they are quite cheap. Even cheaper would be any sort of tall plastic containers, but then you'd have to drill the holes yourself and we've done that, too. One of my neighbours uses rather big grey waste pipes and has drilled the holes in himself. There are also so called Garden Towers which I think are very, very good, but they are not yet available in Europe.
Here is a little video from "Garden Answers" first to introduce the concept:
I have found that with a little bit of planning one can not only plant strawberries into laundry baskets, but almost everything else, too. Even little radishes and they made me laugh, they grew so big that I had problems pulling them out through the holes!
With a little bit of "companion planting" (more about that later), one can actually fill every hole with a plant and then plant a tree, a bush, flowering bulbs or other flowers on top. That way the plants even support and benefit from each other and the vertical garden looks very pretty.
So here we go and prepare our first organic vertical planter and this is what I use:
1 white tall laundry basket (they come in all colors as seen on Ebay) - cut or drill 3 holes into the bottom for drainage
1 Hessian sack or big plastic bin liner (not perfumed!)
1 sack of potting soil (mixed with earthworm compost and horse manure if you can get them)
3 tablespoons of AZOMITE
3 tablespoons of seabird guano
5 shrimps or similar with their shell, I used frozen "gambas" (more on that in a later chapter)
If you are not bothered about "organic" you can use "Miracle Grow" as fertilizer. It is fool proof!
Now simply put the Hessian sack or bin liner into the laundry basket, mix up soil and soil amendments and fill your basket with it. Water it in well and you are ready to put in seeds or ready bought plants.
Early planters, not quite full yet:
Since I wanted to see results really fast, I bought most of the plants, but in future I will have the time to grow plants from seeds. More on organic fertilizers and heritage seeds later.
What about the money? How much does this cost? Quite honestly, all I wanted was to grow my own food again ASAP. We are neither rich nor poor, so every week I added more plants and more baskets and more soil, because we value our own food more than going out for dinner, cinema or other distractions, in fact, apart from the upkeep of the house/van and the internet, we don't need a lot of money, because we got our own food. Well, I don't know if that makes sense, but there are only so many hours in a day and I cook from scratch, run the household and the garden and I write, comment and participate on Steemit plus I run a cryptocurrency miner (still a newbie to this, but it's already part of my day and I so enjoy it!)
Oh, and who is "we"? Well, my husband is more of the quiet sort, he's an ace-technician and fixes simply everything. He makes new things for the house, too, and he also loves the internet and cats.
How about you? Do you feel motivated to start one or more vertical planters with some lettuce, parsley, spring onions, strawberries, tomatoes or what ever you like best? Even if you are a newbie gardener and have only very little space, I'm certain that you will love this system and succeed from day 1!
The next chapter covers more on seeds and trees and how to grow them easily in containers!
Looking forward to your comments and questions!
Love,
Antje