mom23boys


I’m a novice gardener and I’m interested in starting a vegetable garden next year, but would need to do it in containers. Do you have any book recommendations for container gardening? I’m also looking for suggestions on how to get started and what would be easy to grow in containers. Thanks!

Chris

BiG B on tha BEAT


I’m looking for a gardening forum that has many people and provides quick answers. I mainly garden fruits, vegetables and tropical plants.

Home Theater Sound Systems

The urban gardener


Hydroponics gardening or growing plants in the growing media other than soil has been known to humans since ancient times. It is known that during the times of King Solomon, people practiced soil-less gardening, which later became known as hydroponic gardening.

The word “hydroponics” is derived from two Greek words: “hydro”, which means water, and “ponics”, which stands for labor. The principles of gardening without the use of soil were developed many and many years ago. Since then this type of gardening demonstrates certain valuable benefits in comparison to traditional growing plants in soil. One of the key benefits is that hydroponic plants grow 30-50% faster than plants, grown under the typical conditions in soil.

Traditional organic gardeners have always demonstrated certain level of contempt for hydroponics as the type of efficient and successful gardening. The followers of the traditional soil gardening consider hydroponics to be a kind of chemical gardening. Organic gardeners have always been pretty pessimistic as to supplying their plants with a balanced and calculated set of chemicals, which is a common practice among hydroponics gardeners. However, such an attitude of wide publicity and professional gardeners to hydroponics had changed after Steve Fox demonstrated his achievements in hydroponics gardening.

One of the key components of hydroponics gardening is growing media, an inert material, which unlike soil, does not supply any chemicals or nutrients to the plant. There are multiple types of growing media used today. The examples are sand, gravel, coconut fiber, perlite, and vermiculite. Amazingly, but even air can be used as a growing media for growing hydroponic cultures under the certain conditions.   

The undeniable benefit of hydroponic gardening is that it protects the fertile soils from exhaustion. Besides, it does not presuppose the use of chemical pesticides and other chemicals, which are extremely harmful for the environment. In general, hydroponic gardening may ensure greater yields and, at the same time, let the fertile soil regenerate itself for further organic farming.

Though hydroponic gardening also uses some of the chemicals to feed the growing plants, all the chemical plant fertilizers and nutrients are contained within the enclosed area of hydroponic greenhouse and do not spoil the open air, water or fertile soil.



Julian

C.L. Hendricks


Many people who live in an urban setting think that they cannot take advantage of the benefits of having their own vegetable garden due to space concerns. This is a common misconception. All it requires is a little planning and creativeness to have the same types of healthy organic vegetables your friends who live in the suburbs grow.

Tomato plants are perfect for urban gardening in containers and all that is required is decent 5 gallon bucket with holes punched in the bottom for drainage. You then place good-sized rocks in the bottom for additional help in drainage, fill with a good potting soil, and place your tomato plant in it. It should be placed where it can get full sun, but remember to water these plants on an almost daily basis as tomato plants are easily affected by a lack of water.

The next vegetable plants that do extraordinarily well in containers (that same type of 5 gallon bucket) are peas and green beans. It is the same basic procedure for setting up the holes, rocks, and dirt but you will also put a support in the middle of the bucket for the pea and green bean plants to climb.

These plants have runners that they send up obstacles in their way to pull themselves up. There are a number of stakes or small trellises that you can find at local gardening centers that would be more than adequate.

Instead of planting the plants, you will put seeds in as it does not take long for these seeds to germinate and grow. You will make two mounds, one on each side of the bucket and plant 2 or 3 seeds in each mound. Make sure to keep watered and soon the new plants will start to grow and within 4-6 weeks you will be enjoying fresh peas and green beans from your own garden!

You are only limited on what you can plant in containers by how much time you want to invest in maintaining them. You can plant lettuce and radishes in long, shallow containers that you can have stretch out in front of window or along the front of a balcony. Lettuce and radishes are nice to grow as you can constantly reseed as you harvest so that it continues to provide you with salad mix.

Many varieties of peppers can also be grown in containers so that you can harvest them with your tomatoes and possibly some green onion that you also planted in a long, shallow container for a nice salsa.

The greatest advantage of container gardening is that you are not pulling near as many weeds as you would in a standard garden, though you will find an occasional one here and there. Another advantage is that the containers can be elevated so that those with limited mobility can easily garden without have to crawl around on the ground.

Root vegetables may be harder to get to grow as they require space to grow down, such as in the case of carrots, but it can be done with patience and creativity. Many people use those 13 gallon storage tubs to grow root vegetables, because they are quite deep and will provide adequate growing room for the vegetables.

Just remember that water and nice natural fertilizer to make sure your plants have everything to grow are all that needs to really be maintained and soon you will be harvesting and enjoying your own home grown, healthy organic vegetables from your garden!



Dan