The vertical
kitchen garden

May 12, 2006

Spring planting is finished but before returning to the Polar Circle, I took this image of the bamboo framework for my vertical gardening concept. The plan is to train the wandering plants (melons, gourds, squash) to grow up the wide end of the frame, allowing them optimum sunlight, saving roaming space in the garden and eventually providing a tunnel of dappled light to walk through or linger in on hot August afternoons. An added benefit will be that my hanging calabash will grow with straight necks.

On the ‘short end of the stick’ side, morning glory will wind its way up the poles and produce blue and purple flowers. If everything goes according to plan (!) there will be yellow flowering plants climbing up the ‘wide end’ of the framework (left – in these images) and purple/blue flowering plants on the ‘short end of the stick’ side.

This idea is inspired by the Dutch architects MVRDV who also write about vertical farming in their book on density, KM3. I know, I know, they would never favour such vernacular materials or style.

debra at 10:14 | Comments (2) | post to del.icio.us

Kitchen garden inventory

May 10, 2006

What is intensely boring to one person can be rivetting to another. Case in point: my kitchen garden inventory as of the 10th of May 2006: Upper Garden

Row 0 l: (up) sage, cali poppy, silver dollar, rocket, (down) opal basil

Row 0 r: (down) basil, (down) opal basil

Row 1l: (up) sage, fennel, various bulbs rainbow chard, sage, (down) strawberries, delphinia, rainbow chard, bulbs

Row 1r: (up) fennel, red kale, purple cauliflower, purple kohlrabi, (down) silverdollar plant, red cabbage, brock calabria, violet cauliflower

Row 2l: (up) strawberries, onions (x2) coreander, marigold, tulips, dill, (down) strawberries, shallots, purple haze carrots

Row 2r: (up) purple shiso, borage x 3, amaranth, (down) bergamot x 4, onions

Row 3l: (up) strawberries, choke early and purple, choke late, (down) choke late

Row 3r: (up) jalapeño, paprika, jalapeño, paprika, aubergine, gladiola, marigold, aubergine, (down) jalapeño paprika, paprika, jalapeño, onions

Row 4l: (up) opal basil, mizuna, amaranth, (down) opal basil, mizuna, red berry bush, mizuna

Row 4r: (up) mangetout peas, onions, (down) mangetout peas, onions, carrots (made a mistake because onions and peas don’t go together supposedly)

Row 5l: (up) 2 x cherry tomatoes, 4 x ondine cornu, (down) 4 x roma, 1 x cherry tomato

Row 5r: (up) celery, onions, dahlia, (down) onions, radishes, red cabbage, beets

Row 6l: (up) moneymaker x 4, cherry tomato, (down) 4 x ondine cornu, cherry tomato

Row 6r: (up) red cabbage, beets, marigold, fennel, (down) rhubarb x 2, beets (detroit, candycane, egyptian flat), fennel, horseradish, beets

Row 7l: (up) 3 x roma, cherry tomato, (down) 3 x moneymaker, opal and green basil, purple and green shiso on borders of tomato rows 5-7

Row 7r: (up) horseradish (x4), beets, (down) brassica corner, bruxelles sprouts, romanesca, beets, chervil, fennel

Row 8: (up) beets, genovese basil, lupines, (down) coreander, lupines, gladiolas, fennel, cali poppy, fenugreek

In front of upper kitchen garden shed right: fig, mint, peppermint, ginger, marigolds, calendula, iris germanica (please grow you dang thing!), dahlias, lupines, lavender.

Perimeter Upper Garden left: mint, mint and more mint, peppermint, lupines, glads, delphinia, cali poppies, shiso red and green, basil green and purple

Lower Kitchen Garden:
Row 1: sunflowers, dill, soy
Row 2: soy, dill, chickpea
Row 3: adzuki, dill, red night kidney (at pole: morning glory)

Raised beds from upper to lower:
Bed 1: marigold, gold rush yellow courgette
Bed 2: pickling cucumbers
Bed 3: luffah
Bed 4: pumpkin
Bed 5: spaghetti squash
Bed 6: calabash gourds
Bed 7: galia melons
Bed 8: cantaloup
Bed 9: watermelon
Bed 10: poblano chilies, marconi peppers
Bottom 2 rows: golden bantam corn
Perimeter: amaranth, buckwheat and temporarily alfalfa and buckwheat were compulsively planted on the beds to change my weed environment to these weeds.

debra at 9:07 | Comments (1) | post to del.icio.us

Wild tomatoes
for guests

May 7, 2006

Here’s a clump of wild tomato seedlings with the exploded tomato skin still attached to the roots like a busted balloon. They’re popping up everywhere in my kitchen garden, and to think I wasted all that time fussing with the foetuses and a propagator when they can grow themselves all by their lonesome. From now on I’m just going to let a few tomatoes dry on the vine and let them dump themselves on the ground. I may just be getting the hang of the Masanobu Fukuoka style of gardening!

These are currant tomatoes, a wild variety that produced zillions of little berry sized fruit and which pretty much scattered itself throughout my kitchen garden end of season. This is the one I use as my ‘guest tomato’, planted at the ends of the rows so that visitors can have something to nibble on and I can put lingerers to work on an obsessive compulsive harvesting task.

• Wikipedia on Masanobu Fukuoka
• More Masanobu Fukuoka on Seedballs
• Even more Masanobu Fukuoka on Organic dot com

debra at 10:02 | Comments (3) | post to del.icio.us