Using Bokashi to grow vegetables in pots
For the last few years I have grown a few vegetables in pots and last year I used Bokashi in the base and was astonished with the results. I had cherry tomatoes continually from mid-July to November and my dwarf beans were also superb.
People often wonder what to do with Bokashi once it has had it's 2 weeks fermenting and the majority either add it to their worm bins or just dump it in a compost bin/heap. By using it to layer the bottom of a large pot that you then plant some veg in means it works right where you need it.
I've just potted on this years cherry tomatoes. I started with a layer of normal potting compost in the bottom, though there's probably no reason you couldn't just start with the Bokashi.
I then added about 3 inches of Bokashi, before filling to about 3/4's full with organic peat free grow bag compost.
The idea here is that by leaving a quarter of the pot empty you can top-dress with either vermicompost, compost from your bin/heap or even just more grow bag. The joy of vermicompost and compost is it will act as a mulch during the hotter days. Vermicompost has the added benefit of being extremely high in nutrients as well, and therefore ideal for hungry tomatoes.
Once more established these plants (and all my veg) will be fed with a good dose of worm tea throughout the growing season.
I also planted up a runner bean in the same way. These should probably be grown outside but this one will be grown in the greenhouse. I did this a few years ago and had a surprisingly good crop, but this will is the first time I have done it with a Bokashi base to the pot. I'll post the (hopefully pleasing) results.
Labels: Bokashi, vegetables in pots
Creating a raised bed for vegetables
For the last few years I have grown a few vegetables in pots: spinach, tomatoes, dwarf beans and even a single runner bean plant. They have all done well, as have the odd lettuce and rocket.
With my small garden I've relied on these pots (and the greenhouse), while keeping the main garden for lawn and borders full of flowers, as well as shrubs for attracting birds and insects (it's also nice to look at).
This year though I have decided to expand the vegetable production and will be utilising two raised beds by the greenhouse for this purpose. I purchased a
link-a-bord kit from
Wiggly Wigglers and have today set it up. The kit itself took all of 5 minutes to assemble and is made from recycled uPVC. I think I would have preferred wood but this kit is light, simple to assemble and won't rot.
I didn't fancy the back breaking job of digging up the turf so laid some cardboard on top of the grass. This should stop the grass growing through yet still allow the bed to drain well. By the time the season is over the grass should be dead and the cardboard rotted enough to just be dug over like a normal plot (well that's the theory anyway).
Next came a bucket of Bokashi for the base followed by a layer of home made compost from my third
bin. Both these will add nutrients to the soil as well as help stop the soil drying out. I did exactly this in my pots last year and had the best crop of veg ever, even though our summer was atrocious, so I'm sure that it will help just as much this time around.
Finally I topped it off with some John Innes multi purpose compost as that will be ideal for planting the veg plants into. Once established in this the roots will find their way down to the compost and Bokashi and all the nutrients they contain will keep the plants fed and healthy.
The second raised bed kit is on order and I'll be setting that up next to this giving me quite a bit of growing room. I'm hoping to utilise this room properly once I've read
Growing Fruit and Vegetables on a Bed System the Organic Way
by Pauline Pears.
Labels: Bokashi, compost, link-a-bord, raised bed, vegetables, Wiggly Wigglers
Not Quite Gardeners Question Time
On Friday I travelled down to Ledbury, dropped the family off at some friends and then (with an awful lot of help from Digital Doris, TomTom for short) drove on to Preston-on-Wye for "Not Quite Gardeners Question Time", a talk being given by Terry Walton (allotment guru from Jeremy Vine's Radio 2 show) and Richard Fishbourne of
Wiggly Wigglers
Amazingly I made it in time for a glass of mulled cider and was made very welcome by the team from Wiggly's, all of whom I have dealt with electronically in the past but never actually met. For me it was worth the journey down to actually meet everybody in person as much as to hear the banter between Richard and Terry, and even more so to find that they are all just as pleasant and easy to talk to as you expect from listening to the weekly
podcast. Even Michael, technical wizz behind the podcast, catalogue, web site and just about any other form of media used by Wiggly Wigglers, put up with me asking questions behind the Wiggly's
web site and how it all works.
The talk itself was fantastic, light hearted and full of audience participation; Terry makes stories of vegetable gardening entertaining, amusing and, above all, extremely informative, while Richard steers the conversation around to various composting techniques (standard, wormeries and Bokashi) and wild life, such as how important bees are in the garden etc. The only downside to the evening was being forced to sing "My. My. My. Dahlia" to the (not quite) tune of Tom Jones' "Delilah"!
Part one of the talk is available as
Wiggly Podcast 0153.
And thanks again to Heather for inviting me down, being so welcoming and above all, not mentioning the cat argument from
podcast 60!
All in all I had a great time and it was a real shame I had to get back to Ledbury and therefore turn down the offer of a pint afterwards...
Labels: Allotment, Bokashi, Gardeners Question Time, Heather Gorringe, Richard Fishbourne, Simon Sherlock, Terry Walton, Wiggly Wigglers, Wormery
Podcast 60 from Wiggly Wigglers, and the hilarious cat argument
Oh dear. Oh dear, oh dear.
Further to a perfectly innocent email I sent to Wiggly Wigglers enquiring about the hopefully cat repellent properties of Bokashi treated food waste I managed to cause dissent on the Wiggly sofa. The utterly hilarious Podcast 60 is available from
http://www.wigglywigglers.co.uk/podcasts/Wiggly%20Podcast%200060.mp3and should come with a warning: If you intend to listen to this and drink at the same time then don’t, especially if sat at a computer because you run the risk of spraying your drink all over your monitor, which is not only unsightly but can cause a lot of fizzing, electrical problems and possibly death as a result.
Richard and Heather were brilliant; Heather the ‘my lovely cat can do no wrong’ cat lover and Richard the ‘shoot the bloody lot of them’ anti argue back and forth for a good few minutes and it is a laugh a minute. Heather made the following good points:
- You should NOT stop feeding the birds just because there are cats about, but you should try very hard to make your feeding area inaccessible to them. Of course this is a lot easier in a larger garden like the Wiggly farm garden (which also only has the one cat, compared to the 3 that regularly use my garden as a toilet)
- Cats do bring lots of comfort to their owners (as well as lots of little, sometimes still twitching, presents). It’s just a shame that the comfort they bring their owners is mirrored by the stress they cause the neighbours who choose not to have one, whatever that reason may be, and end up with their plants strewn all over the place so the little blighter can defecate (or fertilise, depending on your view) in your borders.
Richard on the other hand obviously loves to hate cats and I think it would be even funnier if you could get him on the subject after a few beers.
- He, quite rightly, points out that there are a lot of people who don’t want somebody else’s cat in their garden for whatever reason but mainly because they would like to feed, watch and encourage birds and other wildlife into their little patch of Eden without the fear that said wildlife will be mindlessly tortured, sometimes eaten (and likely puked back up on your door step) but generally just frightened out of its wits.
- Dogs have to be confined to their own garden so why not cats? I should add that it is very hard to fence for a cat compared to a dog but if you can’t be bothered to keep your cat in your garden you shouldn’t own one. If I was to keep deer in my back garden they would be hard to fence for as well, but it would still be my responsibility!
Anyway, I’m starting to waffle but I will quickly mention that responsible cat owners should read the following to help the birds (though it won’t stop them prowling unwanted in my garden):
http://www.rspb.org.uk/advice/helpingbirds/unwantedvisitors/cats/collarthatcat.aspI should also add that Heather very kindly asked me to be a guest blogger on the Wiggly Wigglers site and if you haven’t lost the will to live yet you can read my efforts at:
http://wigglywigglers.blogspot.com/2006/12/simon-sherlocks-top-five-wiggly.html and view a few pictures of my garden at:
http://wigglywigglers.blogspot.com/2006/12/simons-garden.htmlLabels: Bokashi, Cats, Garden, Wiggly Wigglers
