Container Gardening
Ever felt like doing your part for Go Green campaign but left aside the thought since you felt gardening to be costly and invloves a lot of space.
Great! you have landed in the right page where we introduce a new dimension of gardening – the container gardening – cheap and requires little room space, indoor or outdoor.
Container gardening is growing the plants exclusively in containers rather than on the grounds. Small flowerpots made of terracotta are the commonly used containers for conatiner gardening.
Here we take you a through a whole list of used, cheap, recyclable list of conatiners, the soil and techniques that has to be used, watering and fertilizing and choice of plants for container gardening.
Lets start the first move now:
Lets start the first move now:
Let us decide on the container to be chosen.
Wooden boxes:
You can grow medium to big plants in them and they have good drainage facility naturally.
Trash cans:
They are cheap and are available in bright colors in both plastic and metal material. Make drainage slits of half an inch height at the bottom of the container so that the excess water can drain off when you water the plants.
Laundry baskets:
The palm hand woven laundry suits the demand well.
Bouquet baskets:
Got your valentine day bouquet and not knowing what to do after all the flowers in them have dried out. Give a life to it right now!
Plastic and metal buckets :
Convert all the leaking bottles, rusted metal buckets and paint buckets into beautiful containers.
Plastic and glass bottles:
All plastic and glass bottles with narrow or broad mouths could be a perfect choice of container gardening for interior decoration.
Broken/cracked glass crockey sets:
Love your big porcelain dish and feeling bad that it has it broken through the rim or cracked? These could be ideal choice for containers for interior decoration.
Shoes:
Ever thought your good old boats could help you in gardening. Here they are -
Soil selection for the containers:
Now that we are done with selecting the container, we need to fill the container with soil. It is always better to fill the container with potting soil. The potting soil is a mixture of peat moss, composted bark and/or other plant materials, sand, and perlite (for drainage). The potting soil contains little or no soil. This will be available in the nurseries and is preferred for container gardening as it is light weight and ideal for growing house plants.
If you feel that potting soil is not affordable in your budget, you always have the home made alternative.
=> Fill the bottom of the container with a layer of 1″ flat stone gravel. On top of this layer, place about 2inches of leaf mould or sheets of soaked newspaper to help conserve water.
=> Containers need plenty of fertilizer. So you could place a layer of comfrey leaves on top of the leaf mould.
=> The rest of the container can be filled with compost, either equal parts loam, sand and peat substitute mixed with a handful of bone meal; or a John Innes No3 or equivalent compost.
=>Fill gradually, firming down as you go. Take care not to leave loose open spaces. Instead create fine spaces to assist water uptake and distribution.
Now the container with soil is all set. let go through the list of plants that are well suited conatiner gardening.
You can literally grow anything all plants(vegetables, flowering, non-flowering plants) that suite well to the climatic conditions of your place. However, if you are new to gardening, the following plants could be an ideal start.
Mint:
Mint should be an ideal start. You plant one and you will get twenty in a row. Just plant the mint stem, it will develop roots and start growing.
Table rose:
Just take a stem of this flowering plant and plant it in the soil It will definitely get roots and start growing in a couple of weeks. Place the container in some place where it gets sunlight. These flowers are available in a wide range of dashing colors. It requires very little water and can grow in the hottest of weather with very little care.
Aloe Vera and cacti:
The Aloe Vera and cacti are a perfect choice if you are concerned about water and hot climate.
Some points to be noted as you start container gardening:
1. Water your plants regularly. Plants grown on grounds have long roots to absorb water and minerals from the depth under the ground. But the plants grown on containers require watering and fertilizing on a regualr basis.
2. Do not the plants in the direct mid day sun. Place them in quite a shady area.
3. Chose the plants according to the size of the container to avoid mismatch between the plant and container size.
4. When placing the containers together, space the plants properly so that the bigger one doesn’t block the sunlight for the smaller ones.
5. No plant will remain bright and fresh always. Keep them trimmed and when they start dying off, replant newer ones.
What are you waiting for? Now pull out one of the good old container that will serve the purpose and start container gardening…
Grow trees. Grow more and more trees.
Hi,
Thanks for visiting. But also give this some thought and put it on your site too.
http://nattigoesgreen.blogspot.com/2010/11/is-container-gardening-really-eco.html
Dr. Doshi, of the large densely packed city Mumbai, India, has developed City farming.
His city garden methods are appropriate to apply in reduced spaces as terraces and balconies, even on civil construction walls, and for not requiring big investments in capital or long hours of work. His farming practice is purely organic and is mainly directed to domestic consumption. His gardening tools are composed of materials available in the local environment: sugarcane waste, polyethylene bags, tires, containers and cylinders, and soil. The containers and bags (open at both ends) are filled with the sugarcane stalks, compost, and garden soil, which make possible the use of minimal quantity of water if compared to open fields.
Dr. Doshi states that solar energy can replace soil in cities. He also recommends the idea of chainplanting, or growing plants in intervals and in small quantities rather than at once and in large amounts. He has grown different types of fruit such as mangos, figs, guavas, bananas, and sugarcane stalks in his terrace of 120 m2 (1200 sq ft) in Bandra. The concept of city farming developed by Dr. Doshi consumes the entire household’s organic waste. He subsequently makes the household self-sufficient in the provision of food: 5kg of fruits and vegetables are produced daily for 300 days a year.
source: http://www.cityfarming.in/index.html
This is beautiful!
Congrats to you and Rajandran, for a Happy and Prosperous Married Life!
Your posting is as magnificent as Rajandran's. Bloggers of the similar magnitude!!