Make Recycled Vertical Gardens Tutorial

Vertical gardening is in at the moment.

But it’s more than a hipster way to decorate your balcony.

Vertical gardening is a life-saving food growing mechanism in third world countries that is increasingly being used to transform lives.

Laneway Learning is a peer-taught program that has been running for years in Melbourne and Sydney but is new to Adelaide. The vertical gardening workshop run by horticulturalist Karen Montgomery was so popular, it had to be run twice!

Held on a Tuesday night in the huge upstairs space at COS Restaurant on Leigh Street, the room was packed with attendees of all ages.

With just over an hour, Karen got straight down to business.

This class taught us general information about good food gardening, as well as how to construct a vertical planter out of recycled materials which we could take home at the end of the night.

1. Plants Have Needs

Thankfully, these needs are pretty basic, easy and cheap to provide. Every fruit & veg plant needs:

• Sunshine – 6-8 hours of sunshine a day, so plan your garden for a sunny wall.

• Water – set up a cheap irrigation system because if plants go through drying and moist cycles, they are under stress and will produce less nutritious food. Poly pipe can be bought by the meter, then attach drippers.

• Food – plants need good food to make good food! Try “Rocket Fuel”, a South Australian Made product designed for Stephanie Alexander’s Kitchen Garden Program. It has the right blend of N-P-K for fruit & veg.

• N = nitrogen. There is lots of it in chook poo. Nitrogen causes leaf growth – it doesn’t produce flower and fruit
• P = phospherous. It’s important for root development. Native plants don’t like it as they are very good at extracting it from Australia’s generally low phospherous soils.
• K = potassium. It is potassium that produces fruit & flowers, so look for a higher proportion of it in fertilizers.

• Once A Week Treat – seaweed solutions are a valuable tonic that build micro organisms, encourages root development and reduce susceptibility to insect attack. There are organic ones now on the market.

 

Goodies Karen brought to show us. Photo: Willunga Wino

 

2. Gather Supplies

The vertical garden we made in the workshop was made from three 1 litre water bottles. 

Alternate low cost & high efficiency designs include:

• Placing a tube of chicken wire on a plant pot base, then on a set of wheels. Fill with potting mix for easy planting through the chicken wire holes.
• Milk crates nice volume of soil. Fill w geotextile or blue hospital gowns. Establish your plants then tip it on it’s side and put one on top. Secure with reo bar and run irrigation through
• Plastic trays to drill onto battens on a wall w drip system.
• Pallets popular but full of toxic wood treatment chemicals. Use for ornamentals only.

Here is the complete equipment list:

• three 1 litre water bottles including one lid
• approx 60cm of 0.5mm width wire
• sharp scissors or a stanley knife able to cut plastic
• good quality potting mix
• hand trowel
• empty 10cm plant pot 
• 3 seedlings – try the ones in small individual square peat pots (from Bickleigh Farms for example)

When gathering supplies, here are some tips:

• Peat soils Big W $4 potting mix is very good but not others!
• Coir –  add some coconut hust (coir) to your potting mix to help boost its’ water retention capabilities. Rehydrated, 1 brick of coir makes 9 litres. 
• Eco hydrate – most on the market aren’t good at releasing moisture (good at holding). But only use with non edibles.

3. Start Building

To make your vertical planter out of bottles;

1. Keep one bottle cap and punch a hole through it large enough to take a 0.5mm piece of wire.
2. In two bottles, cut of the ends.
3. In the third bottle, cut a circle out of the end, leaving a rim of about 1cm around the edge.
4. Cut the top and two sides of a rectangle 1 1/2 inches horizontally and one inch vertically, leaving it as a flap connected at the bottom about a third of the way down each bottle.
5. Thread one end of the wire through the cap, and bend over on the outside of the cap to stop it slipping back through. 
6. Thread the other end through the first bottle – one of the ones with the end cut off, neck pointing down.
7. Screw the cap onto the bottom bottle.
8. Pop the tower into the plant pot with the bottle cap end inside the plant pot. This will help stabilise the tower while you finish the construction.
9. Trowel in potting mix to level with the bottom of the flap, and push your seedling in through the flap with the plant itself outside the bottle. Top up the potting mix to approximately 3 inches from the open end.

     10. Thread the wire through next bottle, the second one with end fully cut off through             the fire neck down, pushing the neck into the soil at the top of the bottom bottle.

     11. Trowel in potting mix to level with the bottom of the flap, and push your seedling              in through the flap with the plant itself outside the bottle. Top up the potting mix            to approximately 3 inches from the open end.

 

 

Second layer complete, 3rd going in. Photo: Willunga Wino

 

 

     12. Thread the wire through the final bottle, the one that has the circle cut out of the            end, which will be at the top.

     13. Trowel in potting mix to level with the bottom of the flap, and push your seedling              in through the flap with the plant itself outside the bottle. Top up the potting mix            to approximately 1 inch from the top of the end with the circle cut out of it.

 

 

All levels complete! Ready for watering & fine tuning. 

Photo: Willunga Wino

 

 

 

    14. Turn the bottles so the flaps are positioned how you want them and leaving a flat             space without any flaps at the back where it will rest against the wall.

 

Complete & ready to hang! Photo: Willunga Wino

Bonus Tips – Maintainance

Now that the construction phase is over, it’s time to look after your new planter. It is pretty easy to take care of because it’s self protected from wind, and according to Karen, wind is more drying for plants than sun so that makes this design even more great!

If you’re growing tomatoes, try the new trailing varieties that hang down. They particularly need calcium, so try crushing up your old eggshells and dropping them into the top of the planter.

Copper tape stops slugs and snails. Or put used coffee grounds into your pots, they’re great for leafy greens & gives snails a heart attack. Tea too! You could even ask your local coffee shop to fill a bucket of used grounds for you once a week.

Caterpillars can be picked off! Protect seedlings with a bottle that has the end cut off &  a stocking over the end.

 

Plants doubled in size in two weeks, yay! Photo: Willunga Wino

Karen even had some take away goodies for us, seeds, I won a pair of secateurs in the door prize, and bought a nifty device that turns any screwcap bottle into a proper watering can for just $1.

 

Take home goodies. Photo: Willunga Wino

See more from Karen Montgomery here.

Find more Laneway Learning events in Adelaide here.



Hope you enjoyed this tutorial! What are your interesting planter ideas?

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