By Michael Smith (Veshengro)
One thing I hear being said time and time again is “I'd love to grow my own but I haven't got anywhere to grow”.
The truth is you really don't need a huge garden in order to grow your own, though many folks do think that you do.
An allotment is a fine thing to have if your garden is not a big one but you can do a lot in small spaces and the square-foot gardening method certainly is one way to go. Containers, too, can be used and thus every available space can be utilized for the growing of food.
I believe it started in the United States with community gardens where they used the first time the what we call builder's bags in the UK. Namely those woven polypropylene bars that are also known as tonne bags.
Those, nowadays, in Britain, no longer have a deposit on them and only few companies take them back for recycling. Thus they end up in dumpsters and finally in the landfill. Taking them out of the waste stream by snatching them out of the dumpsters and employing them as “raised bed planters” is good for you and the Planet.
Those bags can be used on any hard standing – and that was the reason they were used in the first place with the community gardens which often were set up in old parking lots or on industrial sites – and their depth works out better than raised beds per se.
Many other containers can also be put to use, including old bathtubs and lavatories even.
While the builder's bags do not need to have drainage holes made other containers that were not intended for plants will need those, be this a bathtub or whatever else.
If you have contacts with the municipal gardens and parks service you may be able to get the large plastic planters (tubs) where there trees some delivered in and which often tend to be tossed out.
I have found that the containers for chemical fertilizers that are used in municipal gardens and parks also, if put on their sides and having the “top” cut out, make great planters of the window box kind of style. They are thus suitable for lettuce and other salad crops.
Food can be grown in the smallest of spaces though whether you can supply yourself all year round without having to buy in additional is a question. But a lot of it you can grow yourself.
Mark of Vertical Veg is a great example as to what can be grown in small spaces and even in the almost center of the city.
© 2011
