We all live in so many different abodes, be it stand alone houses, apartments, trucks, buses or yurts.

At one time or another I have lived in all of these, currently I am in a truck, my preferred type of home.

I love to travel, to move to see new places, but I also love to grow food.

There is nothing quiet like the taste of fresh vegetables straight from the earth.

Image Source: http://www.fao.org

So over the years I have experimented with different ways of growing food. Whilst we were in France a few years back I done a wee workshop about vertical gardening. Because everyone should be encouraged to grow their own food. No matter how much space they have, be it indoors or on a balcony. It is so pleasurable, so good for you and moves us away from being so dependant on supermarkets, helping us on the path to be more self sufficient.

CONTAINER GARDENING

Above is the food I was growing whilst we were living in our bus, we were moving around France at the time and it did take time to move all this in and out whenever we stopped and also to water them. But with my children I wanted them to help me find different ways in which to grow our food, to use different containers. We used baskets, boxes, drawers anything that we could find for free. As you can see we grew mainly salad, herbs and the kids favourite strawberries.

PALLET GARDEN

In a post I done previously where I designed and created an anarchy garden, I put on a workshop exploring ways to grow food in small spaces. I was mainly looking at helping to encourage people who had only balcony or courtyard space to grow food. So I built a pallet garden and three bottle towers. It was important to use materials that we could easily source,that were free and recycled. I will start with the pallet garden which you can see above.

So after sourcing some pallets I took out the 2nd and 4th board using a crowbar or wrecking bar and hammer. Those pallets had been lying around for a while and those nails were well rusty, so alot of work went into getting them out. But there is a certain amount of enjoyment that goes into pulling things apart. I put smaller pieces of wooden on the front to add more depth to each bed, there were 3 rows of beds in total.

As you can see from the picture above I used left over semi-permeable floor covering, to line the bottom of each row and the sides and back. I had used this already for the path in my anarchy garden and did not want to leave any waste. This floor covering was found at an abandoned wood mill behind the squat.

It worked really well, it was strong enough to hold the soil and also allowed any excess water to seep out. We did not want our soil to be water clogged. Drainage is very important. I planted shallow root plants and herbs, due to not having much depth. Planting at this height keeps alot of bugs away, especially slugs and snails, who love to eat our salad.

We chose salads, herbs and again strawberries cos they are such a hit with the children. I put straw over the soil as it gets quiet cold in the Pyrennes where the squat was and I wanted to try and keep the soil a nice constant temperature.

BOTTLE TOWERS

I used 1 and a half litre bottles for two of the towers and 6 litre bottles for the third tower. I used a total of 7 bottles for each tower. Basically you are cutting the bottoms off each of the bottles so that you can stack them on top of one another. In the neck of each bottle you need to make small holes for drainage, two is sufficient and they need to be opposite one another. Leave the lid on the bottle of the first one and then fill with soil, leaving about 5cms so that the other bottle can fit on top. Attach this bottle onto a fence using rope or wire and continue to do the same with the other 4 bottles, but this time without the lid on. Fitting them one on top of the other and securing with wire or rope.

The 6th and 7th bottles are to be used for watering, creating a drip irrigation system. Again you cut the bottom out of each bottle, you place the 6th bottle on top of the 5th, creating a funnel.. The 7th bottle you keep the lid on and drill a hole in the lid, when you fill this with water it allows the water to drip into the funnel and from the funnel into the tower, providing a really effective irrigation system. Then with a Stanley knife you go back to your lower bottles (1-5) and in the middle of each cut 3 lines as if you are drawing the top and sides of a square . This is where you will plant your food. It is best to plant herbs and salad , again keeping to shallow root plants.

I would love to hear of anyone else's experience with container and vertical gardening. I really do love to share ideas and skills especially when it comes to growing food that nourishes us. So please do feel free to share your experiences or better still write a post about it.

All photos are mine exempt otherwise stated.
Image Source for 1st image: http://www.devonfitcamp.co.uk

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