We made a choice to live where we do. We are 12 miles from the nearest grocery store and 2 miles from a gas station. Yes, you can certainly get out much, much further, but more people find themselves much closer to a city than us.
Depending on where you live, the location of your garden may be chosen for you. Perhaps the homeowners association has certain requirements, or your apartment only has a small patio or porch, with no grass to speak of.
However, your location is not the only concern, perhaps digging in the earth is a physical limitation.
Any of these situations could lead you to be looking at container gardening – that is, growing a garden in a pot! How are you going to do this? You know you would rather be out in “nature”, letting the garden grow itself, but you are stuck.
Can you imitate something like Back to Eden gardening in a container? Why not!
You can watch this information by clicking this link, or by watching below.
Permaculture
A quick note about permaculture. To summarize it as quickly as I can – it is the concept of imitating nature to fit our human needs. Letting nature be nature, but in a groomed fashion. That is to say, worms might never choose to wiggle into a container just because we put soil there but if we make the environment correct we can place the worms there and they will live happily as if they were in he woods.
You see, nature goes on despite us. Plants of all variety and size are happily growing throughout the world in all manner of conditions without any human interference. Yet most of us have this overwhelming need to “do something.” That feeling that all will go wrong if I don’t add this, change that, buy that.
And, in fact, we have to interfere at some level. If I waited my whole life I would likely never have a cucumber seed find its way into my yard. So, I stick my nose in natures business and bring the seed in to my environment.
But what more is needed? Complex watering and fertilization? Of course not. Remember, the plant has 1 primary goal – To Grow. The best thing we can do is, for all intents and purposes, is get out of the way and let it. That said, dropping my cucumber seed on top of a lawn that looks like Hole 7 on a golf course will do nothing. It is not natural.
But, if we can give that seed the environment it wants, the environment that lets all those plants that flourish without human interaction, then it will do what it wants…. Grow.
Continue Reading for Page 2: Container Gardening
What kind of worms are these? Would red wigglers work?
I wish I could tell you Estelle, but the fact is they are whatever is here naturally. I didn’t buy them and I’m no worm-scientist, so I’m not sure what they are, exactly. However, having looked into red-wigglers a good bit I would say that they CAN work, but caution you that red-wigglers are used in composting because of how quickly they break down organic matter. I would suggest that if you “inoculate” your garden with red-wigglers that you be absolutely sure to keep them well fed by putting down more and more wood chips, straw and clippings from the garden. Otherwise they might move off or die.