Stacking Gardens – Why They’re Great
There’s nothing better than being able to pick fresh herbs and salad veggies seconds before you need them. But what do you do if you have limited space or limited sunlight?
As our garden is tropical and quite shady – there’s not too many areas where we can grow veggies and herbs. But – we came across the perfect solution.
3 months ago we acquired a fantastic vertical stacker from Productive Gardens – purchased online and delivered within 24 hours.
Once we assembled it (and our 10 year old grandson did most of the work!) we added some good quality potting mix. We added a few lettuces, chives and herbs and watered regularly. Unfortunately not a lot happened. The plants were edible, but didn’t thrive.
Time for analysis and experimentation. We realised that we’d been neglecting the 3 basic rules – sun, nutrition and water. Here’s what we did.
- We went online to ebay and purchased some fantastic rotted horse manure mixed with sawdust from an enterprising local stable. It was delivered within 48 hours. Very cheap and really good quality. We dug this through the potting mix and let it rest for a week.
- We purchased some quality sugar cane mulch – also through ebay – and this was delivered asap. We topped up the soil with mulch and this really helped to keep the moisture in.
- We visited our local farmers market and purchased a bunch of lettuces, chillies and herbs. These were so much healthier looking (and far cheaper) than anything we’d purchased before from Bunnings and the local garden centres. We planted these into the stacker, and gave them a good watering in with a mild mix of seaweed solution to help the roots.
- We also move the stacker twice a day – following the sun. It’s so easy to move as the whole thing is on wheels. On super hot days we move the stacker into partial shade when we see things wilting.
Needless to say our kitchen garden stacker is absolutely thriving! It’s fantastic now.
 |
 |
|
Originally planted in late October |
The December abundance of thriving herbs and veggies. We’ve eaten most of the lettuce, so time to put in so more. See how much the chilli plant in the top has grown! |
- We pick from it every day – and this constant “pruning” keeps new growth happening.
- We have no pest or disease damage at all because the soil is healthy and the “smell” of the spring onions keeps them away from the other plants. Plus it’s impossible for possums to get to!
- Plus this wonderful little garden is a constant topic of conversation when we have friends and family over. We send them out to pick from it when it’s cooking time and they love to be involved – particularly the kids.
It’s really satisfying to buy something online and find that you’ve made a great investment. Not only is the product good and the service excellent, it has given us an abundance of fresh veggies and herbs, and a lot of fun.
I can highly recommend the Veggie Stacker from Productive Gardens.
Annette Welsford has a partial degree in Horticulture and a Post Graduate Certificate in marketing. Having lived in the cold, temperate and hot parts of Australia and the UK, she has gained experience over the years with gardening in a variety of climates. Annette also worked for a fertilizer company where she was responsible for developing, editing and publishing a range of technical manuals on nutrition and fungal diseases for a wide range of horticultural crops including tomatoes. Annette is Managing Director of Commonsense Marketing Pty Ltd, a publishing and marketing company, responsible for the editing, design and worldwide marketing of the How to Grow books, and other products. Commonsense Marketing also provides expert offline and online marketing consulting and design services to a variety of small to medium sized businesses.
Tags: containers, growing chillies, growing herbs, growing in pots, growing lettuce, stacking gardens
