I went out this hour to pick one of my Redina lettuces for a corned beef toasty for our tea.
I noticed my leeks growing in a cut down IBC tank. They seem to be absolutely flying it.
The docks and weeds outside the tanks seem to also be flourishing My raised beds have drilled drainage holes and no doubt the soil nutrients feed the weeds. If the weeds don't grow. Nothing will grow.
I am so pleased with our repurposed plastic tanks filled with fym and planted with organic bought vegetables.
One often praises clay plant pots. I rarely see any over here. I am starting to praise plastic pots and containers. I think they warm up the growing medium and the veg plants flourish. Have you had similar thoughts?
We harvested one of our first leeks the other day. It tasted wonderful. You can pick stuff young and fresh when you grow your own.
The vegetable sugars have not got old and turned into starches like a lot of supermarket old vegetables.
I definitely think the better the depth of soil. The better the vegetable grows.
Supermarkets grow them too big, presumably for greater profit. With home grown you are in control.
ReplyDeleteYou are definitely in control and homegrown means fresh and tender and sweet. We ate bananas when we went to Tenerife. They tasted of sugar. The ones we get are weeks old and taste like parsnips in comparison.
ReplyDeleteI remember those lovely sweet bananas when we lived in Tenerife. They grew all around us and were freshly harvested for the local market stalls.
ReplyDeleteI like plastic pots better now because they are lighter in weight and easier to move.
ReplyDeleteI have never tasted anything like them JayCee. Perhaps it's the minerals in the volcanic earth, wall to wall year round sunshine, close to the sea or just fabulous varieties of banana?
ReplyDeleteHi Brenda. I have far too many of them. Literally hundreds of plastic plant pots that people drop off for me. I agree they are light and they definitely warm the soil up reflecting the heat. I find they are useful for covering shrubs and plants if you are mulching borders with bark nor well rotted fym. I would gladly give away a lot of my plastic plant pots. I have far too many.
ReplyDeleteI prefer clay pots. We have lots of them here. Plastic doesn't last long. It comes to pieces after a few searing hot summers
ReplyDeleteI try to repurpose what ever I can Linda. Plastic included. We are immersed in oil and plastic.
ReplyDeletePlastic pots ate lighter but I suspect the black onez get the root zone a bit too hot in our climate. The porosity of clay pots helps keep them cooler but they need a lot more watering.
ReplyDeleteGood observations Tigger's Mum. I think plastic warms the growing medium. My veg are flourishing in my repurposed plastic tanks. I think it is a combination of the heat reflecting through the plastic and all the fym and deep soilcthat is giving such good harvests.
ReplyDeleteIt's like a saying by Confucius - "The better the depth of soil - the better the vegetable grows." In human terms - if a family has more money, the more successfully the child will develop. However, this did not work out with Trump's kids.
ReplyDeleteVery true YP. The fat of the land.
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