Root Veg from the Container Garden

I've been spring cleaning all my containers in readiness for a house move to Birmingham.  Today it was time to empty the roots containers and harvest the contents - beetroots, parsnips and carrots.

When I pulled the roots out, there were interesting results.  I probably planted the same quantity of all three but most of the harvest were beetroots.  I had a few parsnips although all the parsnips had good sized roots and only one carrot.

They were growing in containers about 30 cm deep by 90 cm long and there were two pots. 

All the roots were grown in spent compost that was home to tomatoes the previous year with a little scattering of wormery compost right at the base as a motivator for the roots to seek nutrients. 

I thought that the spent compost would be sufficiently poor for the roots, but maybe it was not poor enough. 

It was probably OK for the parsnips and the carrots as the parsnips formed great roots, but maybe not the right conditions for the beetroot. 

The beetroots didn't form nice, round beets.  Perhaps the soil was still too rich for them?  Another possibility is a lot of the beetroots were long, like carrots so perhaps that little bit of wormery compost treat at the base of the pots has encouraged them to seek the nutrients! 

It is looking likely that I will be growing in open ground next season so many more comparisons between the two styles of gardening to follow I'm sure! 

Towards the end of last season, I was trying to form a list of crops I found easy to grow in containers and to concentrate on these in the future and crops that don't grow so well in containers to grow them in open ground in the community gardens I support with growing advice.  Roots were on the list of things not to grow in containers as although they are not much effort, unless you count watering - I don't think there is such a high yield from them.

On a happy note for roots grown in containers, all the roots above provided me with my evening meal this evening.  I steamed the beetroot tops and roasted the roots and they were delicious!  I think the worms in the wormery will also be really happy to eat the trimmings from these organically grown veg too!

Do you grow roots in containers?  Do find them a success or a struggle?

Container Garden: Using Spent Compost

In urban areas, growing in containers and raised beds on rooves, terraces and patios is the method of choice.  Compost is really quite expensive and I don't like spending money needlessly or throwing away anything that can be recycled or have a second life.

I don't throw away spent compost but I do make a note of what has grown in the soil most recently.  For example, if I have grown something from the solanaceae (potato family) I ensure I do not grow anything from the family in the same soil when recycling it - in fact I will try and find a legume to grow in the soil next following the crop rotation rule of legumes following the potato family.

In the second hand soil, if growing something that's a hungry plant (e.g. pretty much anything except roots)  I add a generous portion of vermicompost, the beautiful black compost that my wormery makes and mix it in well with the secondhand soil.  If you are lucky enough to have the space for a traditional compost heap or a darlic composter this will be great too.

This saves me a lot in valuable compost - but using this approach you do have to be very mindful of  crop rotation and what's been growing in the soil before.

When growing perennials, I change the soil annually - especially for tree onions and kai lan which can be prone to disease.

I don't usually extend the use of compost past two growing seasons and usually just dispose of it in the borders where my landlord's shrubs live and I sometimes grow salads in the dappled shade under the small trees and shrubs and they grow really well in this third hand soil.

In theory I think you could just keep continuing to extend the use of growing in the soil by adding feed or vermicompost but it gets difficult to keep track of the compost after about two seasons which is why I stop using it in containers after that point.  I feel sure it can be done, but you would need a good system or to keep good records to keep track of which soil is where and its history.

Do you have any techniques or systems for using spent compost?  Would love to hear other approaches.

Our Compost Heap Solution!

A few weeks ago, I blogged for suggestions on Transition Town Wandsworth Community Garden's compost heap as we had to sort it out from being a big unsightly mound in a dark corner of the site

And here it is....

We made this with 3 posts, chicken wire, some bricks that we'd previously dug up at the site and a lot of strength and sweat! 

We can access the compost from either side with a spade.

In the coming weeks, we will learn to make a willow screen which we will position in front to beautify it.

New Year, New Jobs in the Community Garden

This morning was the first 2012 Sunday session of Transition Town Wandsworth's Community Garden.  We had lots of jobs to do and 5 energetic volunteers so we got cracking with our spades and gardening tools.

We had a lovely mild day to work in.


We had several jobs to do:

1.  We have a mound of compost and either need to contain it or use it up rather quickly.  As our community garden is located within a public park we need to make our compost heap look more beautiful.  However, we have the dilemma of not being able to build a structure against the wall to contain it in a wooden structure and are not sure how to deal with it.  Gardening generates waste plant material and it would be great to be able to turn it into usable material for the garden.

So in the meantime, we buried the partly composted material from the compost heap into trenches where the soil is not so rich and fertile.   

Any ideas on a remedy for this?

2.  We had a separate mound of fully composted material kindly donated by the Council so we distributed it as top soil for the raised beds. 

3.  We removed leaves from the base of plants to try to prevent botrytis on the lower leaves of plants.  Botrytis is a fungal condition which occurs in damp environments and is commonly found on strawberry plants. The fallen leaves bunched up at the base of perennials and keeping in moisture is prime breeding ground for this condition.

With 5 volunteers we were able to make a good stab at the jobs but weren't able to complete them all so will have to finish them off in next Sunday's session.

We need more to come and join us, its great fun and the more the merrier!  Bramford Community Garden is a big site in Wandsworth's Bramford Park.  If you want to join us - please get in touch! Email: ttwandsworth@hotmail.co.uk
 
For more information:
Bramford Community Garden Project Dirt 
Transition Town Wandsworth 

Obviously hard work must be rewarded so we shared out the harvested veg :)  Not bad going for January!

Off to warm up in a nearby cafe with a well deserved hot chocolate.