As a follow-on from my original thread about Gardening on really poor soil:-
https://www.selfsufficientculture.com/threads/gardening-on-really-poor-soil.832/
I am posting an update about my successes.
I also am having success with the bathtub no-dig gardens which are positioned in the actual vegie garden.
This is the link to that thread if you want to read it:-
https://www.selfsufficientculture.com/threads/no-dig-gardening.1002/
In late January this year I was prompted by drought to lift all the plants in my ornamental garden that I wanted to save. With little water remaining in the dam & no rain in the forecast it was important not to waste all my previous efforts to grow a few colourful flowers & shrubs.
Also I wanted to try growing edible greens that way too.
So I embarked on a process of making large wheel barrows of potting mix using a mix of ingredients then breaking that down 50/50 with dried & compressed coir. I used the best ingredients I could afford as an investment in the future ease of growth & delight the garden would hopefully give me.
I bought lots of very cheap colourful large containers mostly from Bunnings & used many other large objects to set the containers on to bring them up to a better working height for my bad back. I utilized all the old outdoor chairs I had laying around. I call it 'Chair Art'! Then I realised I would need huge volumes of potting mix to fill the containers so I had the idea to fill them halfway with sugar cane mulch which seems to have worked very well.
I also used that method in the no-dig bath tub gardens I did in the vegie garden. Those beds are on their 3rd planting now with pretty good yields even after the birds & bugs got their (un)fair share! Now I have built netting frames over those tub which excludes all but some rats which I got by other means.
But I wanted to do more experiments using the colourful plastic containers so I bought a few punnets of lettuce, beans & a red pawpaw. The yield from the lettuces is huge considering they are only 4wks old. I have been picking good sized leaves from around the outer of each of 10 mignonette lettuces for over a week. Now that I have to loose a fair bit of weight for health reasons I am eating a lot of lettuce daily. This is up there with the best lettuce I have ever grown.
I found a huge 100lt black plastic container in the tradies section at Bunnings for I think $14, so I figured it would be big enough to start a red pawpaw with other veg planted around it while there was room. Eventually I'll move it to a bath tub bed where I have another one growing too. I got a punnet of green beans which are now beginning to flower so my anticipation is high for some extra sweet & juicy beans. I just love to graze on the juicy crunchy freshness as I work around the garden in the mornings.
I have made these 2 collages of photos I took today showing how I made up the various containers now with mature ornamental plants, annual flowers & the greens, all of which are doing very well, even through the dry then very wet periods we have had this year. I rarely have to supplement water with dam water because I have created a well in the bottom of each container because I put the drain hole as high as halfway up the side. The cane mulch soaks up the rain water & the plant puts its roots down into that well. Also the fertilizer I add to the mix ends up down in the well rather than washed out the bottom so it is still available to the plant as needed.
If you open these thumbnails in a new window you will see them at full size & be able to read the wording I put on each photo.
The left hand collage shows most of the ingredients in my potting mix. I have run out of one ingredient being Searles organic compost. But the mix can be made without it as I did today. To bulk it out I add the coir fibre or as I always knew it to be called 'compressed coco peat'. Most of these ingredients can be purchased at Bunnings although I tend to use my local rural feed barn when the price is right. I check online to see the Bunnings price then when I go shopping I check if my local hardware or the rural store have specials as that will usually make the price cheaper so I can buy local. Also you will see I made a booboo when creating that collage in that I added the same photo twice. Oh well these things happen!
The recipe is 10parts Searles Premium Potting mix, 5 parts Searles Compost, 4 parts Searles 5in1, 1 part Katek organic super pellets (or you could use Dynamic Lifter would be sort of similar), 5 parts powdered cow manure. I thoroughly combine that in a large barrow then add the soaked coir at the ratio of 50/50. Again I shovel that to thoroughly combine in the barrow. The coir is soaked in rain water as per pack instructions.
I fill & lightly pack my plastic container with sugar cane mulch (which I buy by the round bale) then position it in its final location so I don't have to lift & carry the heavy filled container. It needs to be well filled with sugar cane mulch because the weight of the potting mix compresses the mulch down to halfway. Then I begin to shovel in the potting mix. Due to my particular situation of having the possibility of needing to water with the bad dam water, I add a mix of blood & bone, gypsum & potassium which offsets the undesirable side effects of the dam water. A small amount of that mix has to be added every 4-5 waterings or the plants show the bad effects (yellowing leaves, dropped or small fruit) almost straight away.
Then I top up the container with the potting mix & press it down a bit as it is a very fluffy mix. I plant as normal & apply one light watering with rain water. The coir will hold all the moisture it absorbed while being soaked, plus the cane mulch acts as a sponge in the well to hold all the fertilizer & water applied. I drill one drain hole with a 12ml drill bit half way up the container. Even during the recent heavy rains from the cyclone, I found my containers drained well & no plants suffered. I have not had to water them for the intervening 4wks since that cyclone rain. Now we have had some more rain over this last weekend so all the containers are fully topped up & wont need watering for another 4weeks. The exceptions are the containers with the lettuce in which need a small shower of rain water from the watering can each week. I catch rain water off my carport roof into several containers for that reason. That way I am not using my precious household tank supply unnecessarily.
Although the potting mix is quite expensive, it is certainly paying for itself & I expect it will require a small top-up before the next growing season in spring. Also the cane mulch is slowly rotting down in the bottom of the containers so it will be added to the batches of mix I make up in spring. The annuals will be finished so I can turn out those containers to get the composted cane mulch, add new mulch to the bottom & start again.
For my needs, this is a far better alternative to the energy sapping, joyless slug of daily watering on rock hard ground with poisonous dam water.
Gardening has again become a very productive & rewarding hobby for me & I am producing some nice veg.
It's all good!
https://www.selfsufficientculture.com/threads/gardening-on-really-poor-soil.832/
I am posting an update about my successes.
I also am having success with the bathtub no-dig gardens which are positioned in the actual vegie garden.
This is the link to that thread if you want to read it:-
https://www.selfsufficientculture.com/threads/no-dig-gardening.1002/
In late January this year I was prompted by drought to lift all the plants in my ornamental garden that I wanted to save. With little water remaining in the dam & no rain in the forecast it was important not to waste all my previous efforts to grow a few colourful flowers & shrubs.
Also I wanted to try growing edible greens that way too.
So I embarked on a process of making large wheel barrows of potting mix using a mix of ingredients then breaking that down 50/50 with dried & compressed coir. I used the best ingredients I could afford as an investment in the future ease of growth & delight the garden would hopefully give me.
I bought lots of very cheap colourful large containers mostly from Bunnings & used many other large objects to set the containers on to bring them up to a better working height for my bad back. I utilized all the old outdoor chairs I had laying around. I call it 'Chair Art'! Then I realised I would need huge volumes of potting mix to fill the containers so I had the idea to fill them halfway with sugar cane mulch which seems to have worked very well.
I also used that method in the no-dig bath tub gardens I did in the vegie garden. Those beds are on their 3rd planting now with pretty good yields even after the birds & bugs got their (un)fair share! Now I have built netting frames over those tub which excludes all but some rats which I got by other means.
But I wanted to do more experiments using the colourful plastic containers so I bought a few punnets of lettuce, beans & a red pawpaw. The yield from the lettuces is huge considering they are only 4wks old. I have been picking good sized leaves from around the outer of each of 10 mignonette lettuces for over a week. Now that I have to loose a fair bit of weight for health reasons I am eating a lot of lettuce daily. This is up there with the best lettuce I have ever grown.
I found a huge 100lt black plastic container in the tradies section at Bunnings for I think $14, so I figured it would be big enough to start a red pawpaw with other veg planted around it while there was room. Eventually I'll move it to a bath tub bed where I have another one growing too. I got a punnet of green beans which are now beginning to flower so my anticipation is high for some extra sweet & juicy beans. I just love to graze on the juicy crunchy freshness as I work around the garden in the mornings.
I have made these 2 collages of photos I took today showing how I made up the various containers now with mature ornamental plants, annual flowers & the greens, all of which are doing very well, even through the dry then very wet periods we have had this year. I rarely have to supplement water with dam water because I have created a well in the bottom of each container because I put the drain hole as high as halfway up the side. The cane mulch soaks up the rain water & the plant puts its roots down into that well. Also the fertilizer I add to the mix ends up down in the well rather than washed out the bottom so it is still available to the plant as needed.
If you open these thumbnails in a new window you will see them at full size & be able to read the wording I put on each photo.
The left hand collage shows most of the ingredients in my potting mix. I have run out of one ingredient being Searles organic compost. But the mix can be made without it as I did today. To bulk it out I add the coir fibre or as I always knew it to be called 'compressed coco peat'. Most of these ingredients can be purchased at Bunnings although I tend to use my local rural feed barn when the price is right. I check online to see the Bunnings price then when I go shopping I check if my local hardware or the rural store have specials as that will usually make the price cheaper so I can buy local. Also you will see I made a booboo when creating that collage in that I added the same photo twice. Oh well these things happen!
The recipe is 10parts Searles Premium Potting mix, 5 parts Searles Compost, 4 parts Searles 5in1, 1 part Katek organic super pellets (or you could use Dynamic Lifter would be sort of similar), 5 parts powdered cow manure. I thoroughly combine that in a large barrow then add the soaked coir at the ratio of 50/50. Again I shovel that to thoroughly combine in the barrow. The coir is soaked in rain water as per pack instructions.
I fill & lightly pack my plastic container with sugar cane mulch (which I buy by the round bale) then position it in its final location so I don't have to lift & carry the heavy filled container. It needs to be well filled with sugar cane mulch because the weight of the potting mix compresses the mulch down to halfway. Then I begin to shovel in the potting mix. Due to my particular situation of having the possibility of needing to water with the bad dam water, I add a mix of blood & bone, gypsum & potassium which offsets the undesirable side effects of the dam water. A small amount of that mix has to be added every 4-5 waterings or the plants show the bad effects (yellowing leaves, dropped or small fruit) almost straight away.
Then I top up the container with the potting mix & press it down a bit as it is a very fluffy mix. I plant as normal & apply one light watering with rain water. The coir will hold all the moisture it absorbed while being soaked, plus the cane mulch acts as a sponge in the well to hold all the fertilizer & water applied. I drill one drain hole with a 12ml drill bit half way up the container. Even during the recent heavy rains from the cyclone, I found my containers drained well & no plants suffered. I have not had to water them for the intervening 4wks since that cyclone rain. Now we have had some more rain over this last weekend so all the containers are fully topped up & wont need watering for another 4weeks. The exceptions are the containers with the lettuce in which need a small shower of rain water from the watering can each week. I catch rain water off my carport roof into several containers for that reason. That way I am not using my precious household tank supply unnecessarily.
Although the potting mix is quite expensive, it is certainly paying for itself & I expect it will require a small top-up before the next growing season in spring. Also the cane mulch is slowly rotting down in the bottom of the containers so it will be added to the batches of mix I make up in spring. The annuals will be finished so I can turn out those containers to get the composted cane mulch, add new mulch to the bottom & start again.
For my needs, this is a far better alternative to the energy sapping, joyless slug of daily watering on rock hard ground with poisonous dam water.
Gardening has again become a very productive & rewarding hobby for me & I am producing some nice veg.
It's all good!
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