As a city dweller, I can identify with problems of urban gardeners. All my experiments have been in container gardening and how to achieve more results in less space.
The right container
I have tried growing bitter gourd, bottle gourd in big (20”) containers but did not get good results due to a couple of mistakes which I would like to share.
A Free running drainage hole is really important. The commonly available big plastic containers have a slightly convex bottom and very few holes. So it’s difficult to manage proper drainage. Putting earthen crocs increased the weight of the containers a lot, so I had experimented with coco peat, putting the agronet at the bottom etc. but drainage still was an issue. I was not very successful with these and I lost a lot of plants because of water logging.
Another mistake that I discovered I did was to put green leaves at the bottom of the pot. I should have used dried leaves. Talking to some experts, I found that when green leaves decompose, they release a lot of heat and that definitely was not a good idea in the hot Indian summer.
I am doing a couple of modifications for my winter veggies. I made extra holes with a drilling machine. Some one suggested using coconut husk instead of crocs for keeping the drainage hole unblocked, so now I have done that, let’s hope it works. Will keep you posted.
About choosing the container for growing vegetables, I try to use natural materials and avoid plastics. Earthen pots are the best but not available in all sizes. I am using old drums cut in half (vertically) and then put on an iron stand horizontally. It took a lot of effort but it gives a big area to grow leafy winter vegetables.
The bigger containers will not dry out soon but we can’t have too big a container for small plants. So size is also important.
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