"Vertical Veg" container growing - Training notes added

[featherstick]

This looks very interesting:

http://www.theverticalvegclub.com/the-a ... ll-spaces/

A course designed for people who want to grow veg in small spaces. It's not an issue I have, what with allotment and back garden, but I might do the course anyway. No connection etc.

[Hamradioop]

only £120.00. I can think of a number of other things to spend that money on.

[featherstick]

So can I: knives I won't keep sharp, seeds I won't sow, coffee I don't need, tools I won't use

It's £10 a month to learn a skill which you'll keep for life and which can augment your diet, cut your food bill, preserve your health, and perhaps make you useful to your local community. I reckon that's pretty good value - it's the price of a couple of cups of fancy coffee a week.

[Cocotte]

Yes, go for it.
Don't forget to take lots of notes from the course and share them with the rest of us

[FEISTY]

This looks very interesting:

http://www.theverticalvegclub.com/the-a ... ll-spaces/

A course designed for people who want to grow veg in small spaces. It's not an issue I have, what with allotment and back garden, but I might do the course anyway. No connection etc.

I had a wee look at this out of interest Featherstick. I don't have a space issue either, but it's nice to get things out of the way of slugs, even if it doesn't phase the snails. However, I did think the guy's garden looked a bit lacking. When I saw the planters over the doorway, I was horrified. Not only would they blow off in a high wind, possibly maiming visitors, but to get to them you'd have to perch precariously on a ladder. Are you really going to do that just to pick a tiny bunch of herbs for tea? Other than that, I couldn't see what else was classed as vertical gardening. Maybe I just didn't look hard enough, but do think it sounds a bit expensive. A good book on the subject would do just as well. Too many people on the internet trying to big something up to make it seem more than it is. If I had to go vertical, I would automatically think window boxes (little carrots, herbs, salads, spring onions), hanging baskets (cherry tomatoes, nasturtiums, salads, etc) and planters with trellis (squash (with netting supports), peppers, cucumbers, tomatoes, peas, beans, etc). Window sills are invaluable too if you can stand the clutter. I'm sure others could come up with some ingenious ideas. Please don't waste your money. Use it to buy more food or equipment. Even if it's a small purchase, I would always ask myself if I really needed/wanted it and is it good value for money. I don't think this is. Sorry for the damning review.

[Hamradioop]

There are numerous book on container gardening which will teach you the same things. Look around the discount book shops like the works etc.
Sorry I think this is aimed at yummy mummys and others of that Ilk hence the price point.

[featherstick]

I had the chance to do a one day training with Mark Smith based on his vertical veg experience (I didn't pay, it came about through the volunteering that I do). It was very good indeed and he really knows his stuff. He had no gardening experience when he started, just the realisation that 40 years on the council allotment waiting list was a bit too long and if he wanted to grow veg he'd have to get on with it himself on the little balcony he has.

I've condensed the basics here for everyone:

Sunlight is much more critical in a small space and there will be more sunlight even a couple of feet off the ground (important if you are growing up a stepladder for instance). Make a sunlight map by photographing the space every two hours on a sunny day. Keep comparing the map with the site throughout the year and update or re-map it (this was an eye-opener for me because sunlight is not a problem on my allotment).

Below a list of different sun/shade combinations and the plants that do well in them:
Part Shade (4 hours + shade per day)
Coriander
Rhubarb
Garlic
Blackberries
Nasturtium
Basil
Sorrel
Spinach
Leaf beet
Chives
Salad leaves

Part sun (5-6 hours sun per day)
Blueberries
Peas and beans
Most roots e.g. carrots, parsnips

Full Sun (>6 hours per day)
Squash
Aubergine
Tomatoe
Peppers
Kiwi

When growing in containers watering is critical as they dry out very easily. It’s all too easy to stress or kill the plant by alternate flooding then drought through normal watering from the top, or to overwater and rot the roots through constant wet and lack of oxygen. The way around this is containers with water reservoirs and a wick at the bottom. So long as there is water in the reservoir the plant will wick up what it needs. Capillary matting is a cheap and effective wicking material. The reservoir should have an overflow hole to allow excess water to escape. Water is poured down a pipe from the top into the reservoir.

Using these principles I made two containers a couple of weeks ago. Both containers where bought from the garden centre. One was designed as a self-watering container but I wasn’t happy with the design as the overflow holes were underneath the pot, meaning by the time you realised you had filled the reservoir there’d be half-a-pint of water on the patio or conservatory floor. I drilled a hole in the side lower than the existing overflow points and also cut slots in the false bottom for two sections of capillary matting to run from the reservoir almost to the top of the soil. We have a blueberry in that one now.

The other container is larger – 65 litre or so and had no holes other than the one at the top. I made a false bottom from a For Sale sign cut to size, drilled holes with a 15mm hole cutter for air to reach the roots, and cut slots for capillary matting. The false bottom rests on three small piece of pipe. Another longer piece of pipe extends from the reservoir to the surface for filling. I drilled an overflow hole about 4cm from the bottom of the container. This gives me an 5 litre reservoir (if I’ve done the maths right). I have a fig tree in this. I’m toying with the idea of fitting level gauges – a piece of wire or bamboo with a Full line marked on it, set in a piece of cork and fed through the fill pipe so that the Fill line is visible when the reservoir is full. The cork would keep the bamboo afloat and also prevent it coming up the pipe.

Other reservoir options are porous ceramic jars set in the pots but these are beautiful and expensive; upturned milk cartons with holes drilled in the lids (ugly) or drinks bottle or sections of pipe in the bottom of the container and the earth filled in on top (but the reservoir might get filled up with earth).
I’m also going to retro-fit wicking to existing pots by threading it through from the hole at the bottom and then standing the pot on a couple of pebbles or bits of broken tile in the saucers.
Once you get into the idea of reservoirs and matting then plenty of ideas and possibilities present themselves, made out of cheap or scavenged materials e.g. a couple of catering size mayonnaise or sauce pots from the local takeaway, inside one another and then concealed for beauty’s sake in something else, or mushroom trays from supermarkets, etc. etc.
You could make a self-watering arrangement with a large common reservoir for many pots e.g. an old bath or similar, a header tank, and a ball cock in the bath. So long as the header tank was full and the ballcock working you wouldn’t have to think about watering.
Feeding can be carried out via the water (comfrey and nettle tea is a free and effective if very smelly feed), as liquid feed on top, and as solid feed from the top.
Large pots should be mulched to prevent water loss – the mulch can be plastic or stones or even stones on plastic. Of course all this gets heavy and it’s as well to think of siting before you fill the pots up….
There was some discussion on compost and fertility. Growbag compost can be used more than once with tomatoes, chillies, and aubergines going into new compost and then runner beans, peas and salads going into old compost. Compost can be re-fertilised by alternating layers of old spent compost with kitchen veg waste in a black bag, and leaving it somewhere quiet for a year. A wormery might be a good investment if space allows. The absolute basics for fertility though are a bottle of tomato feed (high phosphorus so good for anything that sets fruit e.g. squash, chillies, aubergines), a bucket of chicken pellets (high nitrogen so good for leafy veg) and a bottle of liquid seaweed.

Every couple of years, turn fruit trees out of their containers, remove a third of the compost, replace it, trim roots that are growing around the side of the container, replace and mulch heavily.

That’s a very condensed version of my notes from an extremely interesting training session by a very experienced micro-farmer. I hope someone enjoys some growing success from these notes and becomes a little more self-sufficient.


Some web resources:
http://earthbox.com/
http://www.vitalearth.tv/
http://www.herbalhaven.com/
http://www.greenhousesensation.co.uk/

[Arzosah]

Featherstick, thanks for sharing your notes there - seeing your condensed course notes like that gives a great idea of what the issues are.