Hi,
I'm new to this group but I have been working for 3 years to create a
community garden in my area of Barrow County, Georgia. I have come across
some great ideas for speeding up the process of community gardening which I
thought I would pass on to anyone interested in this data.
I'm sending two links about container gardening which can be created with 31
gal or larger Rubbermaid storage containers.
The first one is Earthtainer - the do-it-yourself version which gives a
video of how to make them - 3 parts.
The second one is a professionally made version Earthbox which costs lots of
bucks. However, the videos on the link give a lot of data on how to make
best use of the idea.
See below for the connection with community gardening.
Watch the videos first.
Once you see these videos, you will notice that the professionally made one
has a water overload feature built into the structure so that you can't over
water it. This is basically an indentation in the side which has a hole in
it, at the level of the ideal water load. When you over water, the excess
just flows out. In the Earthtainer version, water load is handled by a
sensor and is self watering. However, I realized that one merely needs to
drill a hole at the appropriate height in the homemade version and either
stick a tube in there as a run-off and capture it somehow, or just let it
run down the side of the container onto the ground or onto a ground plastic
which captures excess moisture if one doesn't want to go to the expense of a
sensor and drip equipment.
Anyway, here are the links:
Earthtainers: http://earthboxes.wetpaint.com/page/Earthtainers?t=anon
Notice that there are 3 chapters on pdf on the first little paragraph on the
main part of the page - these are the videos.
Earthbox: http://www.earthbox.com/education/fertilizingsinglerow.video
Note the section on the side bar "what to grow" which could be very helpful
for spacing any crop you wish to grow. Also the videos show the professional
version and the modifications on the box. But it gives good data on setting
it up, what kind of soil to use, etc. Also note the use of a 'shower cap'
type of cover in lieu of mulch which could be adapted to any design.
Here's the Community Gardening use idea:
My idea is that with any parking lot, beachy sandy place, or school yard,
these have been successfully set up in rows and grow large amounts of food
vertically. You need good supports that go up 8 feet or so for the climbing
stuff like tomatoes and beans. If you further research the Earttainer
website you will see that they have used two tomato cage type round
supports, upending the second one and attaching it to the top ring of the
grounded one. They used some kind of little screw-on hardware to make it
very stable and they cut off the long legs usually set into the ground.
You might want to set up a frame over the parts of it which you wish to
shade (can use pvc pipe or lumber), and use commercial landscaping cloth
over the frame to keep that Fla. sun from overwhumping the more delicate
stuff like lettuce and spinach.
But otherwise, this would be a perfect starting place for a community
garden.
It has been my long experience as an organic gardener that creating good
soil out of native dirt can take a long time, be very labor intensive, and
test the patience of a saint. And in Fla. sand, be very water consuming
until sufficient organics have been worked in to capture the moisture. Using
correct container formula soil solves all that. You just mix it up in a
wheelbarrow and dump it in. Then later if you want the in-ground type of
garden, you can develop that while enjoying the fruits of the container
section.
But all the good practices of gardening like worm culture, composting,
organic pest control, etc. works just as well in container gardening.
Containers have the added benefits of being more accessible to old folks and
people in wheel chairs, as well as keeping certain snakes and bugs out of
the mix. Containers also take up a lot less space so it can be done on a
patio, a little part of a school yard, on an unused paved area like an old
foundation, parking lot, or contaminated land (I would put extra plastic
sheeting down first to keep any out-gassing away from the plants).
If you follow the instructions on how to fertilize seen in the Earthbox
version, you don't set up high salt content in the soil and it can be
re-used year after year by merely digging up the strip where last year's
fertilizer row was set down and replacing it with new fertilizer. It's
really a brilliant idea.
This tech can go a long way to feeding people quickly, and neatly.
I had the additional idea that if the bins were considered unsightly,
something could be used to surface the bins like boarding or burlap. The
bins apparently last 5 years. That should give a community garden plenty of
time to develop in-ground beds and build more permanent raised beds for the
old folks and those in wheel chairs.
Email me if you have any questions or want to network with me on my great
deal of research on this subject. [email protected]
Diann Dirks
"Community Gardens"
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