Small Vegie Gardens

I was asked to speak about "small" vegie gardens last week. I have to admit to going along somewhat under prepared.  My long term operations manager Deb has resigned after 10 years at Scotsburn, 6 years running the show and she finished up on Friday.  It's obviously difficult at these times to express all the emotions so I will publicly say thanks Deb, best of luck with the challenges ahead.  Anyway, my mind was elsewhere when I arrived to talk to the Chelsea Earth Carers about small gardens.

I had planned my standard "hanging basket" talk: good plants, good potting mix, careful watering. You might have seen an Item in the Herald Sun based on that talk a couple of weeks back (thanks Tony).  I took a couple of sample pots along and started by asking what people were looking for when they signed up for a workshop on "small gardens".  Well if you were there (and if you could hear, it was a busy room) it was a fascinating discussion.  Fortunately the basics: good plants, good potting mix and watering kept us somewhere near on track but I was amazed at the level of interest in the sample pots.
   
OK so the one on the left is pretty ornamental but you can see these troughs are big enough to sustain 3-4 fairly substantial herbs or vegies and they look great by the back door or on a patio.

Our Rustic troughs are made from recycled fence palings and other 'collected' timber.  We have had a trough resized to suit a styrene fruit box.  The fruit box is not entirely environmentally friendly and apparently the growers are using them less these days but they are recycled and they make ideal containers for growing small quantities of herbs and vegies.  The polystyrene provides insulation to the soil and protects the timber from voracious soil organisms.  The rustic trough presents the not necessarily attractive styrene box beautifully and protects it from marauding chickens... perhaps it's just our chooks but they just love pecking at polystyrene.  I haven't noticed our eggs developing additional bounce.  We sell these, delivered to your home for $85.00.

The other "small garden" sample that created ENORMOUS interest was the Greensmart Pot.
 
This pic was taken by Andre at Greensmart Pots Eltham you can tell photography is one of his hobbies. Andre's blog willl tell you a great deal more about these cleaver "wicking" pots that have the capacity to sustain far more herbs and vegies than a container this size has a right to. The water is stored in a well at the bottom of the pot and absorbed into the potting mix through 'wicks', it's very clever, water wise and uses nutrients amazingly efficiently.

Greensmart Pots Eltham and Scotsburn are offering planted pots for $100.00 each, delivered.  If you are interested please give us a call 03 9798 7066.