Reel Gardening and Herbs in a can

With my interest in vegetable gardening, my family gave me some interesting and inovative Christmas gifts this year.

Greg and Sharon gave me three novelty cooldrink sized cans - 'Herbs in a tin" - Basil, Thyme and Oregano (supplied by Fuzhou Premiere Crafts.)  Each can has to be opened at the bottom and the plastic cap replaced, then the lid is peeled off the top to reveal a potting medium which has to be kept moist.  They also come with a tiny packet containing a few replacement seeds. Besides herbs they also sell 'Tin-can Flowers' and one website showed Pointsettia, Cosmos, Lavender and small Chrysanthemum daisies in cans.  I've placed the tins on my kitchen windowsill and it'll be interesting to see how long the seeds take to germinate and how large the plants can grow in a cool-drink sized can.

The other gift was from Jeff and Gail, my brother and his wife. This is a spring/summer planting pack of 5 vegetable seeds on 1m long reel of paper. Now planting seeds in strips of paper is not new and you can read about many different projects glueing seeds to strips of toilet paper, or growing sprouts in tissue paper.  The 'Reel Gardening' process is a more advanced version of this type of germination of seeds in paper. 

Reel Gardening was an award winning science project of Claire Reid, a 16 year-old girl from South Africa.  It involves a pre-fertilised seed strip that encases seeds in biodegradable paper.  The strips indicate the correct depth that the seeds should be buried with a coloured line at the top and the seeds are placed at the correct distance apart from one another inside the strips. Each strip is colour coded e.g. Tomato is red, Beetroot is purple etc.  The paper strip is 3.5cm wide and is purchased in metre strips.  Each package has a specific amount of metres.  Instructions are printed on each strip in English, Afrikaans, Zulu, Sesotho, Sepedi, Setswana and Xhosa.

 Visual instructions are also printed. The strips are very easy to understand and can even be planted by children.
Her invention was entered into the Eskom Young Scientists expo which won a gold medal at the national finals. The Department of Water Affairs and Forestry nominated Claire’s invention for the South African Junior Water Prize as it reduces water wastage by 80% and Claire won. Claire then represented South Africa  at the 2003 Stockholm Junior Water Prize where Reel Gardening came first out of 24 countries.

My pack contains Carrot, Tomato, Beans, Sweet Corn and Beetroot seed strips. The package shows a 2m X 1m area for planting but I decided to use up the remaining Mel's Mix in plant troughs and have planted the strips in those.  They are the same depth as the box garden so the carrots (up to 20cm long) and beetroot should have enough space to grow.  On the ReelGardening website they say that the Sweet Corn will reach maturity in 80 days but there are no eta dates for the other vegetables.  We'll just have to wait and see.

 

 

Everything is Growing, and growing, and growing...!!

Two things have happened since I set up the square foot garden 12 days ago.  We had the house painted and the roof pressure cleaned.  Nothing to do with gardening except that the garage roof slopes down to below head height and almost overlaps the vegetable garden.  If you've ever seen a high pressure cleaner in full stream you'll know that the force of the water can destroy anything in its path.  So, we rigged a high plastic canopy over the garden to project the new seedlings from the water spray and from the debris flying off the roof.  It worked and the garden is no worse for wear! 

The second thing that happened is that everything is shooting off - all above the grid.  The lettuce have  large, floppy leaves and look as though the stems are not strong enough to hold them up. And, the gem squash, although still small plants with only a few leaves, have all sprouted flowers.  How can they develop fruit when they are still like pubescent girls - small and under-developed?  The sweet corn especially look like Jack-and-the-beanstalks!  

I had enough of the Mel's Mix to fill a few seed trays and a trough where I planted a packet of mixed herbs.  They have all emerged but the packet doesn't say what they are so I guess when they get bigger I'll have to do a smell-and-taste test on them.  Just hope there aren't any noxious weeds hiding out amongst them!

IN THE BEGINNING

Wiki:  Square Foot Gardening is the practice of planning small but intensively planted gardens. The phrase "square foot gardening" was popularized by Mel Bartholomew in 1981. The practice combines concepts from other organic gardening methods, including a strong focus on compost, closely planted raised beds and biointensive attention to a small, clearly defined area. Proponents claim that the method is particularly well-suited for areas with poor soil, beginning gardeners or as adaptive recreation for those with disabilities.                    

Finn - my dear, kind husband - says that I have green fingers but that only applies to things I plant outdoors.  Anything I grow indoors doesn’t stand a chance.  When I was working, I hated being in charge of the pot-plants.  “You will have six month to live” I'd warn a new bamboo palm or dracaena and sure as nuts, within six months the poor plant gave up the struggle, drooped and died.  Outside though, everything flourishes and I share what I grow with family and friends – and a host of creepy crawlies that chew on the vegetables, chomp through the stems and leave lacy trails on the leaves. I don’t have the heart to poison them so as long as I can harvest a few lettuce leaves, spinach, herbs and tomatoes, I leave them be. 

I am a scrappy gardener.  I plant things in old buckets, leaky pots, dirt bin inners and even old galvanised gutters.  Because I don’t like planting in the ground, I was intrigued by an article in a friend's November issue of Garden & Home on ‘Square Foot Gardening” (SFG). Planting is done in a wooden frame, placed either on the ground (with cardboard and paper at the bottom to keep out the weeds) or raised (with a plywood base). Your box can be any size, with a wooden grid on top giving you perfect 12” squares (a square foot) to plant in.  You don’t use potting soil in the box – the growing medium is one third each of peat moss, vermiculite and compost.  This is called 'Mel's Mix' after the retired engineer, Mel Bartholemew who started the SFG movement.  

The photograph in the magazine showed a smiling young woman, kneeling proudly next to an immaculate boxed garden, displaying her beautiful herbs and vegetables.  I was hooked!

The first thing I did was ask Greg - my dear, kind older son who works for a building supplier - to make me a box frame 1.5m X 1.5m X 20cm deep with a wooden grid on top. You can use old timber from a junk yard but its best not to have chemically treated or painted wood on the inside of the box.  Finn  painted the box for me with 4 coats of linseed oil.  

Then the filler.  Builder’s Express sell Supaflora peat moss from Germany, vermiculite and compost.  I felt like I needed a maths degree to work out how much filling I would have to buy! First I had to determine the volume of the box - 1.5m X 1.5m X 20cm = 450 litres. But, only the peat moss comes in a litre bag, the vermiculite comes in kg bags and the compost in dm bags.  It is such a long time ago that I did maths that I struggled to find out how much of each ingredient I would need.   So, I used that good old standby - women’s intuition!  I bought 4 bags of peat moss (20L) 4 bags of vermiculite (2kg each) and 4 bags of compost (30dm each).  Its probably not the real McCoy but it will have to do.  It wasn't cheap.  Rounded off to the nearest Rand the peat moss was R84 a bag, vermiculite R52 a bag and Gromor compost R17 a bag so the filling cost me R612.00.  I couldn't wait to start planting! 

I visited the Farmer’s Market in Shongweni on Saturday morning where they have the best seedlings for sale and bought sweet corn, red cabbage, gem squash, capsicum (don't know what colour) red, frilly and butter lettuce, brinjal (egg plant) and spring onions.  I also bought some cucumber which I've planted elsewhere.

There is a planting grid on the Wiki website which shows you that you can plant 1 to 6 vegetable seedlings per square.  While I was planting there was a sudden shower overhead so I didn't have to water the seedlings. The next day I found paw prints in the box and one sweet corn plant missing!  Carling - our Labrador - had decided to invesitgate this new sand pit and obviously sampled the green leaves of the sweet corn seedling.  So, I have planted a red cabbage in the places of the missing sweet corn.
I can't wait so see how everything grows!

Watch this space!!