Like the illusion of Wall Street, with its vast and powerful investment banks, now shuttered, China too is an illusion perpetuated by the Globalists that gave us the 15,000 mile Caesar salad, poisoned cat food and lead based paint on babies' pacifiers. Like the illusion that money would come from thin air to always push housing prices higher, China has spent a generation pursuing its illusion. Pursuing an unattainable dream to be like the West, while 6000 years of its carefully shepherded top soil blows into the sea.
Joined: Sep 30, 2004 Posts: 975 Location: On one of the blades of the fan
Posted: Thu Jun 16, 2005 4:03 pm Post subject:
Carmiac (and others?)
I went to the Lasagna Gardening site and its basically a big advert. Have you tried this out? Any pointers?
But I am a sucker for easy methods - (someone could easily sell me the gardening equivalent of the Brooklyn Bridge) - which is why I like the idea of growing potatoes in garbage cans.
I did a quick google and found a lot of dead newsgroup posts. It appears this is something plenty of people have tried. One of the few posts I could read said you should only use plastic cans, not galvanised metal as it could leak toxins into your potatoes. Again I don't know if this is true.
And why only potatoes - if it works, surely you could grow lots of root crops in this way?
Joined: Nov 09, 2004 Posts: 1250 Location: Big Rock Candy Mountain
Posted: Thu Jun 16, 2005 4:23 pm Post subject:
I know a guy who has a bad back. He grows his veggies in dead freezers, filled with soil and compost, elevated on RR ties so he doesn't have to bend over so much. Paints them black to warm the soil. Seems to work well!
I have the Lasagna Gardening book and have tried it out. The basic idea is to make raised beds, 12-18" tall, and fill them with alternating layers (2-3" thick) of various mulches and peat moss or other water holders.
ASCI art example:
thin layer of wood ash for pH (may or may not be needed)
------------------
peat moss
-----------------
manure based compost
----------------
peat moss
-----------------
dried leaves and lawn clippings
-------------------
peat moss
---------------
straw
---------------
etc, etc
--------------
earthworms
---------------------
damp newspaper or cardboard
-----------------
existing dirt
If you don't have dirt to put open bottom boxes on, make bottoms for them like this:
| |
| |
water permeable gardening cloth
plywood with 1/4" drainage holes
And then put the boxes up on cinder blocks.
The cardboard/newpaper is important, it helps to make sure that the underlying plants don't spring up, and the worms help keep the soil healthy. You can plant right away if most of your top layers are good compost to begin with, otherwise cover the beds with black plastic and wait a week or two.
You add compost every time you harvest and you never ever walk on them. Make them small enough that you can reach the middle. I like to use this as a soil base in sqft gardening. It works as well as "Mel's Mix" and doesn't require that you come up with vermiculite, which can be pricey.
One of the the nice things about raised beds in general, no matter the exact method, is that there is little/no weeding since you are making your own soil and control exactly what goes into it. It is also really easy to make mini greenhouses for them using PVC frames and clear plastic sheeting like shower curtains.
Wow. Thank you, Carmiac -- I'm getting very excited about this, it solves a ton of problems in my gardening space.
In particular, I have a very nice, sunny patch that happens to be over the septic leach field -- where you're not supposed to plant anything that can send its roots down (and also may be hesitant to have plants taking up unknown stuff that's been dumped down the drain by previous owners). I think I can use the raised bed method there.
Quote:
One of the the nice things about raised beds in general, no matter the exact method, is that there is little/no weeding since you are making your own soil and control exactly what goes into it. It is also really easy to make mini greenhouses for them using PVC frames and clear plastic sheeting like shower curtains.
Fantastic.
Quote:
And then put the boxes up on cinder blocks.
I wonder just how high one can raise the beds. I can't do any physical work on the ground and will be much more able to contribute to maintaining the garden if it's elevated. Someone mentioned using railroad ties for this. Aren't the plants more vulnerable to frost if they're elevated?
Joined: Sep 30, 2004 Posts: 975 Location: On one of the blades of the fan
Posted: Fri Jun 17, 2005 10:43 am Post subject: More info
I took some pix of my situation.
Any advice will be gratefully received. Incidentally I have just come from another flat (apartment) on the estate where someone has a huge thriving
balcony garden, admittedly on the top floor and sunny.
This is a view across the estate, my block is smaller than this and nicer. They were built in the 1930s & 40s and are very resilient. I like their eccentricities.
My sunny south facing window:
This is the flat opposite, mine is just the same, on the 3rd floor (4th from the ground):
Here's a view along the balcony, taken about midday today:
Closer view:
The last two images make it seem darker than it is, given the limitations of ccd imaging chips, but you can see the complete difference between the weakly plants on the balcony and the ones thriving in the window - the main difference is sunlight, although obviously the ones indoors aren't subject to greater temperature ranges.
You don't get to see the herb garden which is to the right of the balcony because the stupid server refuses to let me post the pic.
I wonder just how high one can raise the beds. I can't do any physical work on the ground and will be much more able to contribute to maintaining the garden if it's elevated. Someone mentioned using railroad ties for this. Aren't the plants more vulnerable to frost if they're elevated?
If you are using closed bottom beds, you can put them up as high as you like. I recommended cinder blocks as they get them off the ground for drainage and are usually easy to come by, but I've seen beds up on saw horses or tables for people that are in wheelchairs or have problems getting to the ground. Open bottomed beds are still on the ground, of course. On that note, I recommend Mel's mix (1/3 multi source or homemade compost, 1/3 peat moss, 1/3 vermiculite, pearlite, or puffed shale) for closed beds but lasagana will work.
As for frost, well, I live in south central New Mexico, so I've never really had a big problem with it. Mini greenhouses keep it warm enough year round here. I have heard about people putting straw bales around the outside of the beds for insulation. I guess it works. Raised beds do warm up sooner in the spring, which is nice.
Julianj - Can you put up a little stand for your outside plants? Just raising them up a couple of feet should help the sunlight situation considerably and it shouldn't take up any more space than they already are. You might also be able to attach something to that black pipe to make it a trellise for things like tomatos. Also, would it be possible to hang some window box type beds over the edge of your balcony or out your windows? Do you have a compost bin? Composting is one of the most important things you can do for a garden of any size. You can get little apartment sized bins that get rid of odors, check the composting thread for some sources.
I agree with Carmiac's suggestions. Putting your plants up on a box (milk crate) might help getting earlier sunlight. Also, if your building allows window boxes, could you hand a box over the balcony to get more sunlight.
Another suggestion, if you like cucumbers or other smaller vine growing vegetables: Hanging baskets. Just let the vines grow down from the basket. Of course this doesn't work with watermelons or cantaloupes, they just pull the roots out.
Another think you might try is these EarthBox devices. Google it and you'll see what I mean. Some of the sites instruct how to build your own out of Rubbermaid containers. I built one today and will fill it tomorrow and compare it to my other container gardening projects.
Lastly, from your first picture, I see that large lawn in the center of the building. Any chance of utilizing space there for a garden? Maybe some sort of community garden?
Joined: Sep 30, 2004 Posts: 975 Location: On one of the blades of the fan
Posted: Sat Jun 18, 2005 3:41 am Post subject:
Erl, Carmiac thanks for your helpful suggestions.
Perhaps you could post some pix of your projects?
I certainly will raise the plants up somehow. My herb garden does hang on the balcony. I haven't put up any more, because I'm just learning. Maybe next year.
Quote:
Lastly, from your first picture, I see that large lawn in the center of the building. Any chance of utilizing space there for a garden? Maybe some sort of community garden?
These are Council blocks (publicly owned). That's why to build a community garden in the green spaces, which there are several - needs permission and going through the bureaucracy (sigh); then getting some people together. I don't feel up to that yet as I am such a gardening novice. NB one of the other blocks does have a splendid community garden.
I have one of those small composting bins but it does seem to attract flies.
Finally, I really liked the idea of potatoes in a garbage bin:
The two points most make is to use plastic containers, and they say use seed potatoes not supermarket ones which have sprouted, because they may have diseases. I’m going to ignore the latter because I think planting the easiest, cheapest way with spuds you would throw away sounds the best PO type thrifty method. If its good enough for Laurie's Granny, its good enough for me
Actually the best reasonn not to plant supermarket potatoes is the fact that they are sprayed with hormones to supress growth. Sometimes they'll still sprout, but usually weakly. Seed potatoes are very cheap, if you can get any it seems silly to go to all that work only to mess it up with bad "seeds".
I read the Lasagna Gardening book recently, and found it amazing how people can make simple stuff complex to write a book and make a buck. Years ago Ruth Stout started throwing tons of straw on her garden to keep the weeds down and became very famous in the gardening community for inventing "sheet composting". In Lasagna Gardening we have a major breakthrough, instead of using just straw, add some layers of other nutrients for a more complete compost.
Just remember you have to adapt it to your location. For example here in the Pacific Northwest, sheet composting keeps the soil cool and wet and encourages slugs and snails. If you sheet compost your tomatoes they'll still be waiting for summer in October. On the other hand it works great for potatoes and leeks, and I use it between rows to keep the weeds down. For tomatoes and cukes I make 3' wide raised beds about 12" high (rounded, no hard walls), then cover with black landscape fabric (yeah, I know, it's petroleum based, but one step at a time...). Plant the tomatoes there and the ground gets nice and warm between the black plastic and elevating the roots above the "ground level". Then I sheet compost between the beds and come back to the raised beds and plant winter squash between the tomatoes so they gradually sprawl and cover the area.
Joined: Mar 14, 2005 Posts: 70 Location: Northern Massachusetts
Posted: Sat Jun 18, 2005 11:55 am Post subject:
julianj wrote:
Interesting ideas!
As I said before, the indoor plants are going great guns, but the same plant on the balcony is a sad, weakly thing. I'm wondering in my geeky way if I could fix up some sort of polished aluminium mirror to direct more sun onto the plants.
I like this idea and plan to experiment with mirrors to augment sunlight on my window plants over the winter. We have very different situations as I have a large house with a some direct south windows. My problem is that the plants/seedlings that are directly against the windows do well while the ones further away languish. This calls for constant rotation to allow them all to get the adequate light needed.
Excerpt:
"I added a reflector outside the window to bounce some more sunshine into the window. This actually puts "two suns" onto the window. The sun that is normally falling through the window and the reflected sunlight. This is called "Two suns". If I had a second reflector this would be a total of "Three Suns" (DON'T DO THIS). " (I guess it gets Very hot with three suns)
This guy is mainly interested in solar heat where we would be interested in additional sunlight for t he plants.I am hoping that this method will help my winter window garden along.
From looking at your photos, I would guess that setting up a mirror on the wall opposite to the direction of the sun would help. I'm no expert, but ever willing to speculate. Of course you would have to experiment to determine the best angles.
I agree with the previous posters about elevating the plants and moving them as close to the exterior as possible. Maybe you could put up a shelf on the inside of the wall.
Google "worm composting" and you will find more info than you ever wanted to know on vermiculture composting. The red worms are supposed to be great for small scale, urban composting. You can put the bin in a base cabinet in the kitchen.
I looked into this some time ago when I lived in Boston , but ended up freezing my stuff and taking it to someone elses compost as I didn't have a garden. We are going to have worm composters in the basement this winter.
Joined: Dec 04, 2004 Posts: 2397 Location: perpetual state of exhaustion
Posted: Sat Jun 18, 2005 12:27 pm Post subject:
Quote:
For example here in the Pacific Northwest, sheet composting keeps the soil cool and wet and encourages slugs and snails.
We've been having an exceptionally wet summer so far and I don't think the soil is heating up very much (we certainly haven't been getting our usual sun).
I've heard about using the black plastic or landscape fabric and found that it allows spiders to breed under it, is a haven to slugs and mold starts to grow in some places. I was thinking about using clear plastic. it would still keep a lot of the warmth in but not be so shady that mold would start to grow. any comments?
Joined: Sep 30, 2004 Posts: 975 Location: On one of the blades of the fan
Posted: Sat Jun 18, 2005 2:35 pm Post subject:
Thanks for more insights
Quote:
From looking at your photos, I would guess that setting up a mirror on the wall opposite to the direction of the sun would help.
I'm a gardening novice. But I've worked in the professional photo industry for 25 years, so I have a good idea how to manage reflected light. That's why I thought of it when I realised my plants weren't getting enough.
Quote:
Actually the best reason not to plant supermarket potatoes is the fact that they are sprayed with hormones to supress growth. Sometimes they'll still sprout, but usually weakly.
I've got half a 2 kilo bag of potatoes that are sprouting. They don't seem weak to me, maybe UK potatoes aren't sprayed with hormones so much? It seems wrong to throw something away if I could use it.
Joined: Mar 14, 2005 Posts: 70 Location: Northern Massachusetts
Posted: Sat Jun 18, 2005 5:05 pm Post subject:
julianj wrote:
Thanks for more insights
Quote:
From looking at your photos, I would guess that setting up a mirror on the wall opposite to the direction of the sun would help.
I'm a gardening novice. But I've worked in the professional photo industry for 25 years, so I have a good idea how to manage reflected light. That's why I thought of it when I realised my plants weren't getting enough..
Wonderful- I hope you will share yout knowledge and whatever you glean from your experiments.
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