IMPACT’s first post for 2009 is about gardening, one of the most economic and sustainable things we can do to make a difference in our everyday lives. Gardening is not only a way to save money and trips to the store, its good exercise too – save money on the gym!
But what if you live in a small place with no garden, or are a renter with an unsympathetic landlord who doesn’t want you digging in the backyard, or are usually on the move? The answer is a portable garden, one you can take with you when you move and which can be situated in a sunny spot on a porch, verandah, balcony or backyard without having to make major changes.
The basis for the portable garden is the good old polystyrene box – the kind fruiterers use. See, right away we are considering recycling something, and that’s a great start.
The best boxes are the ones with holes in the bottom, but you can use any box and just put holes in the bottom yourself with something sharp.
These are some of my boxes.As you can see I have laid down a base for them, to stop weeds coming up in between.
But the boxes can be set on concrete, wood, anything. You can raise them slightly on bricks or other supports to ensure good drainage.
You can use othercontainers besides boxes as I have here, recycling old pots – it’s just that boxes are cheap – I get mine for free. You can recycle other smaller polystyrene packaging as well – below I’ve used some for raising seeds.
For soil I just use potting soil, which I get for about $3 AUD a bag. But I also spinkled a biy of slow release fertiliser around. This seedling is doing well.
I’ll be keeping the blog updated on the progress of my portable garden. Love to hear from anyone else who is doing this, or wants to try.
