Growing plants in containers

Grow Food In Small Spaces

Even if you live in a tiny city apartment, you can grow something. Get containers and put them by the windows. Go down to your local recycling center, or check out your neighbors' recycling bins on recycling days, for containers. Plastic gallon milk jugs can be cut with scissors to make suitable containers. Use cinder blocks (from a home improvement store) and wood planks (from a lumber store) to build sturdy shelves under the windows. Use the shelf space for storage and put your plant containers on the top shelf. South-facing windows are the most desirable. To grow things in containers, you will need compost and a small amount of garden soil (about 10% of the total amount of potting material to be used.) Buy potting mix with organic components and peat moss. How to Make a Container Garden: • Move container to its final desired location. • Put 2 sheets of wet newspaper in the bottom • Put a small amount of soil in it: soil will be heavy and will be difficult to move later on, so if you want to move the container around, just use a small amount of soil and a larger amount of lighter composting material. If the pot is in a secure place and will be stable and you don't have to worry about it needing weight to keep it from being knocked over by the cat, you can eliminate the soil altogether and only use the lightweight composting material. • Cover the bottom layer, either soil or lightweight filler, with shredded newspaper and then add 2 inches of peat moss • Add another 2" of potting mix, and then another 2" of compost • Add chopped leaves or grass clippings • If you need good drainage, add some sand at this point. • Repeat layers of potting mix, compost and sand, and chopped leaves and grass clippings if adding. • When pot is full, scoop out a hole in the material and set your plant inside it along with some extra compost or potting mix • Water container thoroughly • Mulch with grass clippings or chopped leaves or bark (to mulch is to cover the top area around the stem of the plant(s) with something that weeds cannot get through. You can also use wet newspaper for mulch and add woodchips or dry leaves on top of it to make it look more attractive. Tips: Make sure drainage trenches around the garden are kept clear. Use mulch to help keep the soil and beds raised Make a fermented fertilizer like EM/compost tea or bokashi to help improve the soil and break down the mulch. Keep an access route through the center. Add a new bed each year if space permits. Non compost If you don't have a composter for all your leftover kitchen waste, put your leftovers in a blender half way, cover with water and blend on high until if forms a slurry. Then pour this directly onto the soil outside or, if you have time, space and equipment, add some kefir whey, yeast starter or EM and let it ferment for awhile and then pour it in the soil. Simple Fertilizer Recipe Mix together 2 ounces of apple cider vinegar 2 ounces of clear ammonia 2 ounces of molasses 1/2 cup of hot water When they are all blended together, add to a gallon of water Goat Tea Fertilizer Put approximately 2" of goat or sheep dung into the bottom of a 5-gallon bucket. Cover with water and let set 2-3 days. Pour on plants, indoors or out. Growing potatoes in a stack of tires Put down a tire flat on the ground. Fill with dirt. Put another tire on top of it, fill with dirt and plant your potatoes in it. When the potatoes have put up shoots at least 6 inches high or as high as the tire, put another tire on top and fill with straw -- not hay -- around the shoots. (Hay has seeds attached to it, straw does not.) During the growing season, you can reach into the straw and harvest small potatoes in the straw. When the season is over and the stalks have turned yellow and fallen over, turn over the tires and remove all the potatoes. (Note: do not use tires whose rubber is worn down so much that it exposes metal, as the metal could leach into the soil in wet conditions. The rubber in the tire is fairly stable and not as harmful as the metals used in making tires.) Growing Garlic Garlic that has started to grow green sprouts can be returned to the soil to grow a new garlic bulb. Plant in late September to middle October. When the plants break ground, mulch with leaves. Garlic will grow awhile and then stop during winter. When spring arrives, it will take up where it left off. Harvest when the base of the stems starts to turn dry and papery, or the bottom leaf is brown and dry. In hot weather, the stalks may fall over, in which case you will need to harvest it then and not wait until later.To harvest: pull up the bulbs, shake off the excess dirt off, and lay them out to dry in a non-sunny place with good air circulation for a week or two. When dry, clip the roots off close to the bulb and the tops back to an inch or so, hang in net bags and store in a cool dry place. Raised beds. Dig up your lawn and plant food. If you own a lawn, dig it up and plant food. Unless you have a goat (who can eat the grass and convert it to food for you eventually). If you don't have a yard, hang baskets to hold several items. Anything that will hold soil and can have drain holes drilled in the bottom will grow food. Make raised beds in your lawn: In the Autumn, pick a sunny spot Create the shape of your bed in the ground. Use a half-moon soil cutting tool if you have one. Lay the four scaffolding boards out, Use rough cut lumber -- pressure treated boards or railroad ties will have unacceptable chemicals in them. Use a trowel to dig up soil if boards aren't level. Screw together or nail blocks to the inside of the scaffolding boards or screw corner brackets to the outside to secure the shape. Bang trellis stakes into the ground outside the bed to brace up the scaffolding boards for when the soil is pressing against them. Cover with newspaper, then soil, compost and manure. (Soil can be dug up from the woods), and then a heavy mulch of rotted straw. Sun box: If you can't build a greenhouse, lean an old window against the side of the house or building on the south facing side, preferably, or east-facing side if that's all you've got, pack hay bales on either side to secure an insulate. Can even be used in a city high-rise balcony. Make a home for mason bees Mason bees do not produce honey, but they do just as good a job of pollinating our food as honeybees. They don't live in colonies so they aren't subject to colony collapse, and they are immune to the verroa mites that attack honeybees. If you're worried about the loss of honeybees, or if you feel your garden didn't produce as much as it should have last year, why not build a home for these hard-working, peaceful, non-stinging pollinators? It's easy -- just drill 5/16" wide holes 6" deep into lumber.or tie together a bunch of bamboo tubes that are 8 inches long with an inner dimension of 5/16", and secure it to a safe location. All bees like lemon balm (bee balm) so plant some around your garden to show the bees you appreciate their hard work. How to Grow More Vegetables: Than You Ever Thought Possible by John Jeavons. 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