I have recently published numerous practical tips for my Facebook-group :
CONTAINER GARDENING AND VERTICAL GARDENING
http://www.facebook.com/groups/221343224576801/
As this is an open group, you can become a free member of it and get your daily portion of practical tips on container gardening and vertical gardening.
WELCOME !
Read at :
http://www.cityfarmer.info/2012/01/22/composting-at-home-in-india-the-daily-dump/
Linked by Michael Levenston
http://anax8a.pressmart.com/housecalls//index.aspx?issue=issue22&page=68
Bangalore produces over 2000 to 3000 tonnes of waste everyday. The centralized government composting plant can handle only 500 tonnes per day. The rest reaches dumps that are illegal.
In just five years the Daily Dump team has helped over 4,500 customers in Bengaluru to compost household waste in terracotta pots, and these customers keep around 5,522kg of organic waste out of landfills every day. What is remarkable about Poonam Bir Kasturi’s waste management process is its simplicity, and the cleverly designed terracotta pots add a touch of earthiness to it.
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Read at :
http://www.care2.com/greenliving/grow-a-garden.html
You Can Grow $700 of Food in 100 Square Feet!
One way to save an enormous amount of money, engage in soul-enriching work that truly is fun and refreshing, and boost your health (both by being active and eating well) is to grow food in a home garden — which takes less space than you might think. Here’s one perfect example. Long-time gardener and author Rosalind Creasy took a 5-by-20-foot section of garden bed by her tiny lawn to see how much she could grow in just that 100 square feet. The results are astounding.
She planted two tomato plants (‘Better Boy’ and ‘Early Girl’), four bell pepper varieties, four zucchini plants, four basils (expensive in stores but essential in the kitchen), and 18 lettuces (six ‘Crisp Mint’ romaine, six ‘Winter Density’ romaine and six ‘Sylvestra’ butterheads).
Cathy Wilkinson Barash, who worked on the project with Creasy, created spreadsheets for each type of plant, and the two gardeners kept meticulous records each time they harvested. They recorded every amount — both in pounds and ounces, as well as number of fruits (for each cultivar of tomato, zucchini and pepper) or handfuls (for lettuces and basil).
To determine what the harvest would cost in the market, Creasy began checking out equivalent organic produce prices in midsummer. On a single day in late August, she harvested 49 tomatoes, nine peppers, 15 zucchinis of many sizes, and three handfuls of basil — which would have totaled $136 at her market that day.
Read at :
http://www.care2.com/greenliving/start-a-bag-garden.html
I’m all for planting in well-worked, well-maintained garden beds, but because of busy schedules and limited growing space, that isn’t an option for everyone. If you’ve been thinking of taking the plunge into the joy of growing your own food and want to start with an easy method, a bag garden might be for you.
To plant a bag garden, you simply purchase a few bags of topsoil from your local garden center (buy more than a few if you have the space and want to grow even more). Lay the bags anywhere that gets full sun and has dirt below—most people just lay them on the edge of a yard in the grass (note: the bags will kill the lawn directly below them, but that’s OK because this has transformed into garden space).
Next, use a utility knife to cut out a large, rectangular window on the upper surface of each bag. Leave the sides and 2 inches of each top edge intact, resembling a picture frame (see illustration above). The 2-inch rim of plastic will keep the soil from spilling and help retain moisture. Lightly dust the surface of the soil inside the bags with organic fertilizer and mix it in with a trowel. (Skip this if the bag’s label says fertilizer has already been added.)
Food production in an alternative city garden :
See production of vegetables in all kinds of containers : sacks, crates, pots, bottles, cans , …
Only possible (authorized?) on a brownfield in Berlin (Brownfield sites are abandoned or underused industrial and commercial facilities available for re-use.)?
One of the most exciting views is the back and forth flying of birds around the house. It is quite easy to attract a number of birds close to the window, particularly in winter time, by hanging a bird feeder close to a window. A cheat and simple bird feeder can be made from a discarded plastic bottle. Hanging such a “bird bottle feeder” close to a window of the living room assures a daily wonderful show.
Here is my newest video :
Building towers of recycled bottles and/or pots offers fantastic opportunities to grow fresh food with a minimum of water and fertilizer. One can grow at home, in cities and villages, all kinds of vegetables and herbs. Bottle towers are a wonderful tool to alleviate hunger and malnutrition. They can be build at the lowest cost by any family everywhere on earth, particularly in drylands and deserts.
Read at : Google Alert – container gardening
http://rdcisterns.com/2012/01/06/garden-trends-2012/
Plants that do more and cost less. Water saving strategies. Black and amber foliage. Small-space landscaping. Metal décor. Growing up (vertical gardening). And a bigger focus on front yards over back yards.
These are just a few of the hot gardening trends for 2012 that have been identified by various experts around North America and beyond.
But arguably the most significant trend is the emergence of what are being called “urban knights” – a growing army of new do-gooder green thumbs who are creating food and flower gardens wherever space will allow – on abandoned building sites, rooftops, balconies, alley ways, and in the limited space of their own front yards.
According to Susan McCoy, of the U.S.-based trend-spotting Garden Media Group, this new generation of gardeners is composed of environmentally-conscious Gen Xs and Ys who believe in the power of plants and regard plants as “no longer a luxury, but a necessity for our lives.”
This new horticultural ground force knows that “plants can live without us, but we can’t live without plants.
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Read at :
http://www.mastergardenproducts.com/sustainablelandscape/recycledplasticbottlegardening.htm
Recycled Plastic Bottle Gardening
Here are some general ideas on Recycled Plastic Bottle Vegetable Gardening, more and more successful for food production in the dry lands, for combating desertification, fight hunger and for growing plants in urban areas. Plastic bottles are everywhere, from the far away desert and the highest mountain in the world, the Himalayans, if we can get this ideals to the people who are lacking the food, we can help them to reduce hunger, educating the children, reduce plastic waste, and most important of all, letting know always there is a solution and future if there there is a will.
Unlimited possibilities
When the ability to garden is limited by different factors, like available space or drought in the dry lands, then consider container gardening. The simple concept of growing plants in pots or even in plastic bottles or plastic shopping bags, offers a variety of ways to enjoy gardening and produce plants in the most difficult circumstances. All you are looking for is: some containers (see below), the right growing medium, the right choice of plants (seeds, seedlings or young plants) and a window, a balcony, a porch or an open area, preferably with a sunny and a shady part. In these mini-gardens one can easily control the type and condition of the soil and pest control is easier since one can isolate the infected plants.
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