It's been a very wet winter in Costa West Cork and I've been toying for a while about making some raised beds to improve the drainage. I am not going to get out some filthy lucre (beer tokens) and buy wood, nails or screws and a new saw to make them. Oh no!
One of my ever collecting hobbies is plant pot collecting and I have my contacts who very kindly give them to me for free. So I am going to have my very own plant pot, old tyre and fish box garden. Or 'Plant Pot Garden' for short.
You can see my 'Japanese' winter onions are flying it in the fish boxes at the top left of the photograph. They said the McDonald's catchphrase to me: "I'm loving it".
So Dave the soil slave was busy yesterday with his trusty four prong pike digging and filling plant pots with garden soil and I've planted them up with onions that I planted in compost in 'Portugal ' my polytunnel.
Yes it's a lot of work. But they seem to like the drainage and most of all it confirms what I am always saying that you don't need even a garden to grow things. You could have a flagged back yard but you could still fill it with plant pots and grow things. I once grew potatoes on an a upstairs window sill in a big plot in a flat.
You might need a bit of help from Bill & Ben, The Flowerpot Men. After all, you are not going to get anywhere digging with a fish. (You referred to a pike)
ReplyDeleteWas it Bill or was it Ben? Little Weed knows!
DeleteDigging with a fish. Another good name for a Prog group YP.
DeleteMy pike is like a garden fork but with a long handle and four tines. Great for moving muck and digging or forking over ground.
Good one Jaycee. Bill and Ben in a pub. Bill says: "Flob a lob a lobba, flob, flob, flob." Ben says: "You're having no more. You're drunk!"
ReplyDeleteHi Dave, have a look at this system,I use my own version of it succesfully. Saves a lot of time watering.Itd called 'The rsin gutter system'
ReplyDeletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NyOIRVjatdg
Basically you can use all sorts of things to make a similar system.
Kathy
It looks great Kathy. Thanks for telling us about the gutter system.
ReplyDeleteHere, something touted for small space food production is to fill a tire with dirt, and then plant potatoes, set another tire atop it, fill that with dirt, plant your potatoes. Continue that way until you have a stack of potato filled tires. When top layer potatoes are ready, lift the tire off, set it along side and scrape the dirt back into it, harvesting your potatoes. When the next layer shows growth, repeat. This gives you a ready supply of new potatoes all season without actual garden space. Disclaimer: I have never tried this. Interested to see how your experiment turns out.
ReplyDeleteHi Debby. Yes I have heard of growing potatoes in tyres. Bob Flowerdew(real name) an English TV gardener and writer often showed this method on his television programme 'Muck and Magic'. Kathy (walking in beautiful carmarthenshire) recently recommended lining the inside of the tyres with a bin liner to avoid any danger of cadmium poisoning. Thanks.
ReplyDelete