Wherever you find a sunny location, you can grow vegetables

Photo credit: Michigan State University Extension

If drainage is an issue, raised beds can be very productive and easy to manage. Photo credit: Rebecca Finneran, MSU

Choosing a smart site for your vegetable garden

Selecting the optimal placement of your vegetable garden is important for success

EXCERPT

Vegetables can be grown in a wide variety of containers, and they need not be fancy. Even a burlap bag will do. Photo credits: Marilyn Goodson, MSU, http://msue.anr.msu.edu/uploads/images/Plant%20Ag/VeggieBurlapContainers.jpg

Selecting the optimal placement of your vegetable garden is important for success. When it comes to choosing a site to plant your vegetable garden, understanding the essential key components including sunlight, water and good soil will ensure your garden bounty. Picking fresh vegetables from your own garden or patio container can be very rewarding. In addition, you may discover new foods to add to your plate and may influence others to try new vegetables.

Read the full article: Michigan State University Extension

 

Your own potatoes at home

 Photo credit: Access to the Garden

Potatoes in burlap bags

How to Plant Potatoes in a Container

Posted by Acus Cimis on Google+

EXCERPT

4. Planting Potatoes In A Pot

 

• Mix free draining soil with fertilizer and moist them.
• Fill in the container with 4 inches deep of growing medium.
• Cut the seed potatoes into 2-inch chunks that have some eyes. You can plant small potatoes as they are.
• Plant the chunks in container with 5-7 inches between apart.
• Cover the seeds with 3 inches of moist soil / growing medium.
• After the potatoes grow around 7 inches, cover them with more soil. Continue to cover the small plants until you reach the top of the bag or container.
• Keep the potatoes in containers are well watered but not soggy.

Read the full article: Garden and Farm

A simple question about hunger, a difficult answer (Willem Van Cotthem)

WITH ALL MY HEART / Met mijn hele hart :

http://desertification.wordpress.com/2013/07/20/a-simple-question-about-hunger-a-difficult-answer-willem-van-cotthem/

A simple question about hunger, a difficult answer

Today, all over the developed world, important parts of the population are combating the economic crisis and in particular the food crisis by switching to production of fresh food. Produced at home, even in the smallest quantities, this “own fresh food” plays a considerable  role in the well-being of families, in particular of children.  Container gardening, vertical gardening, bottle towers, gardening on risers, balconies or windowsills, hydroponics, aquaponics, gardening in self-watering buckets, bags, sacks, crates, boxes, pots, guerilla gardening, edible forests, …, it are all different initiatives taken to alleviate  hunger and malnutrition problems.

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In a small space, bottle towers produce a mass of fresh vegetables and herbs (Photo WVC)

Container gardening in Malawi (Patrick DIMUSA)

Read this personal message of Patrick DIMUSA :

“Dear Professor Willem,

I hope your wife is better now after that terrible brain stroke in October 2008.

I lost my job last month and I am back in my village.

After I learned about the significance of container gardening for rural people in the drylands from you,  Professor Willem, my life has changed for the better, because in otherwise useless plastic bottles and plastic bags I can now grow vegetables for offering fresh food to my family, as well as for beautifying my home with flowers.  At the same time I am keeping the environment around my house totally clean (no more littered bottles or bags).

My fellow villagers in Piyasani village in the outskirts of Lilongwe city are flocking around my house to learn about this new initiative.  In November, I started collecting tree seeds from the surrounding remaining forest. Now that the rain has started I am planning to set up a community nursery of tree seedlings using the container gardening method.  I hope to be able with this plan to donate  tree seedlings to one school, so that they are able to plant a school woodlot.  At the same time, this will motivate other schools to start the same initiative as it is one of the cheapest kinds of agriculture and afforestation methods for the poorest countries in Africa, as no financial resources are needed since you can do this prioject around your home with empty plastic bottles and plastic bags.

I have a lot of photos of this project to be send to you, Professor Willem, so that other people can see the importance of container gardening for a poor country like Malawi.

Apart from container gardening,  I am also doing vegetable farming at a small scale for sale and for feeding my family with nutritious meals.

However, I am looking for well-wishers and donors who can come forward and assist me in buying a piece of land, which shall become an education centre for container gardening in Malawi. Any one who is interested can either e-mail me at patdimusa@yahoo.co.uk or call me on +2659028290.

May God bless you, Professor Willem, for introducing this container gardening method to the people of Africa.