Bug Off Container Garden

Water is the universal solvent. Chemical pest control eventually ends up in our water supply. I try never to use manmade pesticides. Those Frankenstein concoctions are killing our bees. I am always looking for natural solutions to environmental problems.

Rob Sproule of Salisbury Greenhouse writes excellent garden articles. He is doing interesting work in the community with school gardens. Teaching children gardening is one of the better things one can do with one's time. I bet you can find a place for this container on your balcony or the patio. 

“Mosquitos are a fact of life in Canada, but dousing our skin in DEET doesn’t have to be. This container, though non-edible, is perfect to grow on your patio, in your gazebo or anywhere you like to sit and unwind in the evenings. You could also break it up into smaller pots to create a scented perimeter.” – Rob Sproule

Ghetto Garden Fabulous #3 - Desperately Seeking Containers

When you garden in a small area like a city garden, a hi-rise building terrace or a narrow alley, one of the ways you can gain or increase planting space is the use of containers. We have even developed a phrase for this avocation: Container Gardening. Yes, you can grow potatoes in a laundry basket. 

If you go to your standard garden store and price containers, you may find them costly. I mean, it is triage. What do you want more? Exotic new plants or fancy containers?

So many choices in life. How stylish do you want to be? Some people like funk. Some people like glitz or techno. Or whimsy. 

So I thought I would present you, cher Readers, with some creative, varied and unusual containers I have gathered from a glorious google tour of the net container gardening universe.

Look at junk with a creative eye. Anything you have that will hold soil is a possible container. Use industrial horse troughs. Use those capacious old aluminum pots from the thrift shop.

Do not forget that you must punch holes in the bottom of any container you plant in. Do not drown the Petunias.

The Kitchen Fairy Garden below is one woman's answer to the Fairy Garden craze.

Now this is what I call Ghetto Garden Fabulous. Your ghetto garden may be created from necesssity or otherwise.  Maybe we are witnessing the rise of a new, whimsical and environmentally sound genre in gardening. Whatever is happening, I like it. 

Pipe Dreams in the Garden

Author: Vinay Magadi

"I am a resident of Bangalore. I graduated from Christ College, Bangalore (now Christ University) in 1989 with botany and zoology as my subjects.

In my childhood, we had a huge garden and all that we wanted, we grew in the garden. I had to shift to terrace gardening due to lack of space in our current residence.

I have grown a wide variety of vegetables like Maize, Kidney beans, ChowChow, Bush beans, Purple beans, Tomatoes, Cherry tomatoes, brinjals of different varieties, various greens, amorphophallus, Okra etc. in the terrace successfully."

Today I can say that with my pipe garden I can grow 14-22 vegetable plants in a footprint of 1 square foot.

You can read more and see more photographs at the links. I am going to try this for Strawberries.