AM looking for some advice on a good book for container veg. I remember reading a post one day about a particular book but cannot for the life of me find it.
I have a 3.5ft by 11.5ft patio (and nothing else) and want to try and make the most of it. I suppose Ill be looking to plant things that will be ready in teh next few months mainly, but I would also love to plant a few things that will keep a small steady supply over the winter also (Kale/Spinach sound good??)
Last year, I had Courgettes, beans, blueberries lettuce et cetera, but this year I want to expand on that.
Any advice/tips would be greatly appreciated.
Many thanks!
Hi Killer,
When I was gardening in a small space I found "Square Foot Gardening" by Mel Bartholomew a great help......see it has been updated!
http://www.amazon.co.uk/All-New-Square-Foot-Gardening/dp/1591862027/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=gateway&qid=1201008582&sr=8-1 (http://www.amazon.co.uk/All-New-Square-Foot-Gardening/dp/1591862027/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=gateway&qid=1201008582&sr=8-1)
It was more of an area in the garden though, a raised bed, but the spacings etc. of plants grown close is great, and so long as your planter is a square foot it would help ;D
*The Container Expert* by Dr. D.G. Hessayon.
He does a whole range of gardening books. (Try Amazon Books)
My bible is *The Pocket Vegetable Expert* by Dr. D.G. Hessayon
Thanks a million for that!
Any thoughts on/experience with "McGee & Stuckey's Bountiful Container: Create Container Gardens of Vegetables, Herbs, Fruits, and Edible Flowers"
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0761116230/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top
It gets great reviews and I think its may be worth a look..............
Hi, I have The Edible Container Garden(fresh food from tiny spaces) by Michael Guerra XX Jeannine
and would you recommend it?
Amazon reviews are mixed
If I am to be truly honest I have to admit it is not what I thought it would be.
I had a book some years ago that I loaned out and lost, but could never remember the exact tile so replace it so I was looking for another one.
There is a lost on design,pots,soil,compost, worms, paving and paths,companion planting, diseases, that takes vare of up to page118,Then comes the chapter "What shall I grow?" It then takes you through what will grow in what pot, depth of planting etc, but that is only to page 143 and the book was closing.
If you want to make a beautiful garden with water and trellis and stone designers pots that looks like a work of art,a bit Sarah Raven maybe ,it is an excellent book, if like me you want a hands on,how/when/how many/in what and which variety book you will not like it.
Would I personally buy it again, no, but I wanted the second type of book.
Each to their own I guess.
Does this help?
XX Jeannine
Absolutly!
Thanks for that indeed.
No, I am definatly looking for a hands on, specifically veg in containers and on the patio
If I find anything, Ill let ye all know!
I liked 'Window -Box Allotment by Penelope Bennett It is a good read and makes you want to go to it asap.
Surely we should recommend JRP's website?
Only joking ;D
I think this GW page
http://www.bbc.co.uk/gardening/tv_and_radio/gardeners_world/berryfields_containerveg.shtml (http://www.bbc.co.uk/gardening/tv_and_radio/gardeners_world/berryfields_containerveg.shtml)
and these RHS pages
http://rhs.org.uk/advice/profiles0106/veg_containers.asp (http://rhs.org.uk/advice/profiles0106/veg_containers.asp)
http://rhs.org.uk/news/pressreleases/containerveg150206.asp (http://rhs.org.uk/news/pressreleases/containerveg150206.asp)
give a good overview and suggest plant types as well as specific varieties.
Sorry I can't help on the book front.
Some interesting pointer there.
Good spot, thanks!
There is so much info you can Google using te words "square foot garden" you might not need to buy a book. While doing that I came across (below) something that sounds worth trying. By the way, how did your blueberries do in a container- I've been tempted to try tophat variety that way?
3 FT HIGH Lettuce Planter:
Make a column out of 1" chickenwire, 3ft high and 15-16 inches in diameter. You'll need 5ft of 3ft-wide chickenwire, allowing for a 1ft overlap. Fasten it with twists of thin wire. Line the inside with corrugated cardboard from cardboard boxes.
Stand it up on end, hold a 4"-diameter plastic plumbing pipe in the middle and fill the pipe with sand and stones (builder's gravel for concrete is ideal). Fill the rest of the column around the pipe with good soil, packed down enough to prevent it sinking too much later (but not too tightly -- don't compact it). Carefully remove the pipe.
Cut slits 2-3" long through the cardboard in a spiral going round the column from top to bottom. The spiral should go round the column 6 or 7 times, with 6-8" between the slits, making about 50 slits or more.
The sand and stone core is for watering -- water will sink right to the bottom and then spread out to the sides. After you've watered it it will sink a little; top up with more soil and sand.
Plant leaf vegetable and salad crop seedlings through the slits. Water every few days.
This gives a growing area of 12 square feet occupying a very small space. Make sure you put it where it will get enough light, or supplement natural sunlight with growing lamps.
You can make a few columns -- plant them about two weeks apart for a steady harvest throughout the growing season. Five will give an average family lots of delicious, fresh, green vegetables.
Yikes!! Very fancy indeed!
May be worth looking into.
On one of said google searches, I came across this vid of making your own self watering container. Very good.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aZUCxBHeq04&eurl=http://mosaik.wordpress.com/2007/06/18/diy-make-a-own-self-watering-container-for-your-plants/
RE the blueberries................meh!, Not the best crop you'll ever see, but we definatly had a few off each bush. Some nice and plump, others a small bit tastier than others. I have no doubt that they would prefer to be out in the ground.
Another thing that I did, was use growbags for my courgettes. I found that the ones with the broadbeans planted in with them took off and were massive. Nitrogen fixing I suppose.
That said, however, they did not provide the "glut" I was expecting (may have been a pollination thing though)
Container-gardening of sorts: I had an elderly, homebound patient once who liked to garden. He had a friend buy a couple big plastic bags of good soil( or mix) and set them by his patio (which was like an unscreened porch). He poked holes in the bottoms of the bags for drainage, slashed the tops, planted his pole bean seeds in the slash and had his friend tie strings from the bags up to the roof gutter. He had more beans than he could eat, had the fun of watching them grow and picking them and no weeding. At the end of the season the bags got dumped. there are more ways to skin a cat...
I just wanted to add that I did try the square foot gardeinng once in Canada, we had the raised beds marked exactly as the book said and followed it to the letter, even counting out carrot seeds, but I truly thought it didn't work well with some veggies especially things like cauli, corn and broc as the foot simply was not enough room. It worked well for carrots , beet, some lettuce etc though.I found it easier to plant the wide spreading veggies in pots big enough for the root system but also they could spread wide enough in a pot, even overhanging it, which it couldn't in the square foot sytem.
XX Jeannine
You'd never grow PSB in a square foot, but I suppose you could use a few of the squares and plant short-term crops in the spaces.
A couple of years ago, bought some parsnip seeds - Lancer? They were a mini veg thing and grew happily ish in a pot (also could see what the young leaves looked like after a certain nameless person weeded all but one parsnip a few years ago!).