I used to see these random, grass-filled tubs every day when I was studying at University. When I moved in to the neighborhood seven years later I decided it was definitely time to do something about it.
I thought they would make great micro-community vegetable gardens, providing free, local food. But they needed a lot of work before that could happen.
I cleared away all the bottles, rubbish, rocks and glass and weeded the tubs.
At first I just planted the two plants that I have never managed to kill (geraniums and dahlias) to make sure that things could grow in the tubs without the clumps of the gra**** root structure.
It worked!
We then planted what I thought were zucchini plants (actually buttercup pumpkins!). Although they were very slow to take off, the buttercups have been a success, there are at least two that will make it to maturity.
I then wallpapered the tubs to increase their visibility and (hopefully) value to the community.
You can see photos of my progress on Flickr:
The
weeding and planting of the tubsThe
cleaning and decorating of the tubsThis is very much a work in progress, and it will take a while for the tubs to become known as a source of food. Here's my progress so far:
So the next steps are:
- A****s how the buttercups go - how many made it to harvest?
- Ask people in the neighborhood whether they used them and what other veges they'd like to have available.
- Figure out how to get larger crops in smaller spaces.
- Involve more people.
- Re-plant the dahlia tub with a winter crop.
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