We are doing a lecture about our work on our project about community gardens and participatory design on 11th June at 1530 hours. Please come if you can!
Tag Archives: container
Spring is in the air
I love it when the first clematis come out in- it really is the beginning of warm weather and it makes me smile. Here are the first blossoms, along with their friend my ‘permanent robin’ and the new leaves on my olive tree.
Compost update
Those of you following the blog since last year will know that I created a small home composting system. This consisted very simply of putting a plastic pot inside a large planter and covering it with a double lid. Today, I went to see what it was looking like. Here it is, some compost made from kitchen waste six months ago without any additional help-
As the stuff gets composted, it gets compacted and goes down and so I added some more fresh peelings and kitchen waste into it today. I will also be using some accelerator to see if that helps to speed up the composting. As the weather has been so wet, this is not ideal but at least it seems to be working. Inside my kitchen, I have made a four part sorting system- one bin for composting, one bag for cooked food waste, one for dry rubbish and a big bag for recyclables. I tried using a normal sized rubbish bin and realised that it was taking weeks to fill up with the result that the cooked food waste thrown in was getting mouldy. I also have very little cooked food waste which is not compostable in the above manner and so this four part sorting means that I can use my peelings and tea and coffee grinds for compost, crushed egg shells for staving off slugs and also for sprinkling on the pots. The small rubbish is kept in crisp packets or similar size bags that I was going to throw away anyway. This way my kitchen also doesn’t have any mouldy stuff while I save on buying bin bags! Of course, this kind of system will only work if you have small bits of non compostable rubbish and don’t eat lots of meat, etc. Here are my carrot tops growing in my home made compost.
Avocado uses
The avocado is a very useful fruit. Originally from the sunny climes of Central and South America, it is now widely available. I get organic avocados shipped in with my vegetable delivery box from time to time in the summer. Avocados have a ‘higher fat content than most other fruit, mostly monounsaturated fat, and as such serves as an important staple in the diet of consumers who have limited access to other fatty foods (high-fat meats and fish, dairy products)’.
Baked avocados with some sardines are a great treat but raw ones with a mixture of honey, vinegar, olive oil and garlic are amazing to have. I have served them with all sorts of foods- fish, meat and salads. The seed is useful to keep in an avocado half because it stops the exposed flesh from going brown due to ‘Enzymatic browning’ a chemical process like what happens to banana skins. However, when you are done, you can rub the stone across your face with gentle and circular motion for a soothing massage and a rub in of oils straight from the stone.
And some people have asked if an avocado tree grows in a cold climate. Yes, below is my three year old plant, growly slowly in a container in the UK. Perhaps this is climate change. It hasn’t flowered or produced fruits yet. I am going to replant it in the spring in a deeper pot. Lets see what happens then. But it certainly looks beautiful anyway!
container composting experiment
I have been looking into composting for those living in apartments in cities with only containers. So far there are not many options apart from communal composting and small wormeries/bokashi bins. Worms are quite delicate creatures and the thought of killing the worms has prevented me from using worm composting. Bokashi bins also need investment in terms of buying the bokashi powder and perhaps also having a wormery to go with it. So having tried the composting using plastic sheeting last year, I thought of another variation.
This consists of taking elements of composting bins and using them differently, utilising my knowledge as an architect. So I took an ordinary plastic pot and have started filling it up with kitchen waste. It is covered up to prevent flies and other vermin from reaching it. But the main thing is it is placed inside the container as shown in the photo on the right. The holes at the bottom of the plastic pot drain into the soil and therefore there is no mess. The nutrients reach where they need to. The soil around the pot keeps it insulated much as a piece of carpet or double walled construction would. At present, as you can see, the plants are loving it and I have had no problem with this. The waste keeps getting compacted automatically and I keep putting new material in. You have to be careful with the balance of dry and wet materials- I found out. Too much wet stuff like apple or pear cores is not good- I balance it out with onion skins, twigs, dry soil etc but this is much easier than using a shop bought composting bin and reuse of the many plastic pots that come free with any plant purchase. Also, so far no cleaning has been involved and no smells! This home made ‘mini composting bin’ has been working well. I hope to report later in spring to see how it all went.
A homemade present
These days when anything can be bought from royal titles to a bit of the Moon, making something to give to someone appears very unique. When I was young, my Uncle used to give us the best presents- they were always the same and they brought me and my sisters so much delight. They were shoes boxes filled with the things we liked- crepe paper, scissors, glue, tape, tinsel, string and paint. From those things we created a lot more things- I remember those shoe boxes with such pleasure. A box that made me do something creative! Times have changed now- shoe boxes filled with such things won’t be accepted with such joyous innocence!
This year, I made something for my son alongside a ‘bought present’. Plants are very easy to propagate and make great presents. So here is my homemade Bonsai starter pot for my son.
I grew that little tree out of another bonsai tree that I was pruning, the moss was found growing on another pot that needing cleaning out and I had the sedum plants. I had found that little pot as well. There are many Youtube videos on soil composition needed for Bonsai, so I won’t be going into that. That said, the main things I learnt from the videos were that the soil needs to drain easily and that composition of the loose soil to that of the compost or hot soil is 75% to 25%. Some of the sandy soil I found in an old pot and mixed it with some fresh sand that I found when a local basement was been built (talk about sourcing locally!) I mixed everything by hand and instead of sieving as shown in the videos, I took out bigger bits of rocks and gravel by feeling with my hands. The rocks and shells have been collected during our holidays, so they will have memories and familiarity. It will take a few years for that tree to look like a bonsai tree (it is only 6 months old). Until then, he is going to have learn to take care of it as Bonsai needs a lot of looking after. So this is my version of our childhood shoe box presents- something creative that will encourage my son do something creative.
canny planting
An important part of being a canny gardener is thinking about how to do the most with least (thereby save money). Some could be about buying perennials, some could be about plants that re-seed/re-grow by themselves every year and some about plants that do two or three things. Here are some easy plants that have worked for me because they are easy, need little watering and resistant to common pests while attracting bees and good insects.
- Eating and looking/smelling good– Edible Chrysanthemums, Chopsuey greens (extreme right), pansies and lavender. Shown below (left) is the edible chrysanthemums and my thai rice noodle made with it. I am going to use the flowers and the pansies, along with the nasturtiums to make a ‘flower salad’ later.
- Buy one and get many for free– Calla lilies, Hosta, Alpine sedum, mint (both mint and sedum work well as ground cover, saving time on weeding. Shown below is my Hosta plant which has had many babies and survived slug onslaughts (slugs love Hosta). When the leaves are young, you can eat them as greens.
- Reseeding by themselves- Mexican Daisy, poppies and Marigold. White flowers spring through fall. All needs medium to low water. With the daisies, you can also divide and get many from one small pot that you buy.
- Perennials– Clematis, Agapanthus, Lobellia Fan Scarlet, Canna (many of the South African flowering plants will also grow in the UK and Europe, needing only little watering and care and producing gorgeously vivid blooms) . Shown from left to right are the Californian poppy (that occasionally becomes perennial!, calla lily and agapanthus, Erysimum (Bowles Mauve) and Clematis.
- Useful weeds– Herb Robert, Dandelion, common geranium, nettles- I have got these free from the heavens- they are medicinal herbs, good for bees and grow with no problems! Shown below are nettles which I use for food, fertiliser and tea and also wild geraniums.
reorganising for the winter
Sad to say that the summer is almost finished and now I am working to reorganise my little garden for the autumn and winter. One of the lessons, I have learnt is that having too many pots and plants is too much to look after. So after having rescued two barrel planters waiting for the rubbish tip, I got some help in transporting these to my terrace. So for next few months and next year, I am going to use these barrels for a permanent flower ‘show’ and use the smaller pots for summer salads. I gave away extra pots to the neighbours. Better to have fewer good looking planters than several straggly ones!
I had gone away for a week while I left my home made compost to dry so that the slugs go away ‘naturally’ (sorry, I cannot stand slugs). Upon return, again working on the HegelKultur principle, this is how I filled the planter. I don’t like using plastic bottles for the bottom as some bloggers do- I don’t have them anyway and because, I don’t want the risk of plastic decomposing amongst a growing medium (I have seen plastic bags disintegrating even when kept inside). Instead as a first layer, I used broken oyster and egg shells, pieces from a terracotta pot and cardboard packaging. I also put in garden waste and kitchen bits and pieces. Not only do the cardboard soak up the valuable juices from the decomposing waste (unlike the plastic) but also they will decompose eventually someday. It will also lighten up these very heavy barrels and create some air space while they do so.
Next I put in my home made compost, again lightened with some perlite. My mistake in the past has been that the compost has been too ‘wet’ which does not suit most plants. Water should be able to drain naturally as it does in the ground.
I had found a baby’s bath which I now use for making compost and nettle juice- my nettles in the planter provide a year long supply of nourishing organic fertiliser (cut up the long stems and they grow again). This was also mixed with the compost.
Now I took out the plants from the smaller pots and replanted them in the barrel, spreading some new compost around the gaps. Great- at least five less pots to water! and it looks lovely (and saves water). I tried to make it look ‘wild’ rather than planted. Hope you like it! The Cala lily, by the way, is the one I rescued from oblivion- the bulb looked tumorous, but after cutting away those bits, see the gorgeous glory!
Container garden experiments
Summer has sort of started in the UK and so I am starting on a container garden experiment. Rather tired of growing conventional stuff and losing them to slugs, insects and weather, I am going to be a bit daring. Three weeks ago, I bought some seeds as written about in the books by James Wong, the best selling author of many books including ‘Grow your own drugs’. James trained at Kew as an ‘ethno-botonist’ and has worked with herbalists and other experts to write his books.
These are some of the seeds I will be using-
These include many unusual container vegetables- Chopsuey greens, Mooli, liquorice, Chinese chives, callaloo and Samphire. I chose these ones because I usually eat them and buy them at exorbitant prices from supermarket. For £2-49 each, it was worth a try!
The Chinese chives have already started to come through- see below and note how I am protecting them from slugs by using crushed egg shells. Unlike an ordinary garden, my terrace is protected from rats so I can use egg shells.
Above you can see the tiny liquorice and one samphire plant coming through in my improvised egg carton seed tray.
James Wong also writes that Hosta is edible, but when I got round to seeing why my Hosta plants weren’t coming up, I realised that slugs had also found them equally tasty! However, I managed to salvage one tuber although at that point much its leaves had also been chomped through. Re-potting them, and protecting the remaining leaves by using some crushed egg shells, has made new leaves come through. I can’t wait to try them in a stir fry. I will be posting stories of this experiment through the summer (including recipe successes and disasters!) and I hope this helps others who might be minded to try the same thing.
Freezer tricks
My last post was about summer abundance and how to cook with unripe or extra produce from your garden. Well, if you don’t want to cook it, you can also freeze it. In the UK, about 800,000 tonnes of food valued at £2 billion is thrown away annually- 30% of the food thrown away is perfectly usable but we buy too much and throw it. Six steps to reducing food waste are-
- Plan ahead for the week, on a daily basis. Use coupons and reduced price food wisely- don’t buy reduced price food just because it is reduced and give away coupons you won’t use.
- Buy what you need or what you will definitely eat (do try a new food once in awhile!). Do not be tempted by BOGOFs and money off coupons unless they are about what you would buy anyway.
- Store food correctly at the right temperature and place- many food such as bananas and avocados do not need to be stored in the refrigerators.
- Cook the right amount. I use things like yoghurt and fruit to supplement if one person says they are hungrier that particular day rather than making more food.
- Store leftovers for later use.
- If you really must throw, then see if you can compost it. Many food items such as meat can’t be composted. Some food can be eaten by pets and animals such as pigs but again check before giving it to them.
About £860 million worth of food is stored in freezers. We could do more. Saving food not only saves the planet by keeping down the greenhouse gases but also saves us money. Freeze food before it goes off and bought food can be frozen on the day of purchase. Some tips-
- Check your freezer is below 5C- your chicken and greens will last three days longer.
- Bread gets stale in the fridge six times faster, so divide your bread and store excess in the freezer. You can easily defrost it by leaving it out or using the microwave.
- You can also divide other food into smaller portions for freezing. Ice cube trays are handy for freezing juices, milk, tomato sauce, herbs into small portions that can used as needed.
- Cut vegetables into pieces and freeze- these are very handy for quick stir fries.
- You can also freeze eggs, cheese, chopped bananas, summer fruits and cakes.
The Canny Gardener 