Growing Vegies in Recyled Containers Or On a Worm Farm

Great for small courtyards or balconies!

Here are some Yellow Pear tomatoes, purple and green basil and lettuce growing in an old recycling tub, (thanks Paula for the tub, and thanks Abby for the tomato seedlings!). It's actually a worm farm at the same time.

This is very easy and cheap to do and you can use any large-sized container:

1) Drill some extra drainage holes in the bottom so water will drain through.

2) Put a layer of stones/broken crockery/anything similar in the bottom to further assist drainage (most vegies do not like wet feet!). It's also a good idea to have the bottom of the container raised up slightly on some bricks or stones so that extra water can easily escape and your worms won't drown.

3) Add some compost - I made my own but you can buy organic compost. In South Australia I supplement my own supply with SA Composters' compost.

4) Add a layer of "bedding" for the worms - I used shredded newspaper and some old straw, and some scrunched up used brown paper bags.

5) Add more compost, and also any food scraps you have from the kitchen, in small pieces. Anything that was once a plant is fine, although apparently worms don't like strong smelling things like onions or garlic too much (mine aren't that fussy!) Make your final layer just compost so that the food scraps won't be in your way for planting seedlings.

6) Water well and mulch with straw, or even newspaper. Check your drainage.

7) Once your compost/worm food mix is moist but not too soggy, you can add your worms. I initially bought a box of worms ("red wrigglers") from a garden centre a few years ago, but now if I'm starting a new tub I just take a few from an established tub, and they soon multiply! Better to add just a few at first, and they will then regulate their own numbers to suit the food supply.

8) Leave the tub for a week or more. The soil level may sink, so you can then pull aside the mulch and add more compost. Then you're ready to plant your vegie seedlings. Check the label for the amount of space required for each plant, but this is a nutrient-intensive way to grow them, so you can get away with a bit less space than is usually recommended.

Leave a space to occasionally add some more food (cut up kitchen scraps) under the mulch for your worms.

9) Watch your vegies grow as the worms eat the scraps and general debri in the compost, and as they feed the roots of the plants with their nutrient rich worm poo! Remember to keep the soil as evenly moist as possible. I often use clean rinse water from the household.

I've also grown cucumber, spring onions, chives, silverbeet and rocket in these tubs. If growing them from seed, I just move the mulch aside and add some seedraising mix to the top just before sowing. I keep the tubs under a lemon tree in Summer. In Adelaide I have an excess of UV light, and the tomatoes actually do better under some dappled shade!

Yoga Pose Favourite: Legs Up the Wall

Benefits:
- relieves tiredness in the legs
- refreshes the brain and heart
- improves circulation and releases tight hamstrings when done regularly
- thought to be helpful for relieving varicose veins

Contraindications:
High blood pressure, hypertension, glaucoma.

Sounds simple, and it is. If you feel tightness in the backs of your legs at first, you don't need to have your legs right on the wall to receive many of the benefits. Just be as close to the wall as you can, without feeling strain in the backs of the knees, and make sure your body is evenly placed, rather than crooked. Support your head with a thinly folded blanket or towel if you need so that you can rest your eyes downward easily.

Close your eyes or use an eye pillow, and quietly observe your natural way of breathing, allowing the breath to slow down if that happens naturally. Stay for 10 minutes to feel wonderfully rested and refreshed, or come out earlier at first if your feet tingle and build up the duration slowly.

If you do this pose regularly, not only will it become easier to get your legs right up to the wall, you'll also strengthen the relaxation response that comes with the pose.

With the extra height of a bolster placed precisely under the hips, the inversion increases and this pose becomes the classic yoga pose Viparita Karani. I suggest you ask your local yoga teacher or visit http://www.yogajournal.com/ for a more in-depth description of Viparita Karani and its benefits and contraindications.
Viparita Karani is one of my favourite poses because it's so effective when I'm feeling physically or mentally tired.

Tomatoes that stand out from the crowd

Supermarket tomatoes have been grown with transport and packaging in mind. They're tough, picked fairly green, and you can rest a brick on them and they won't get squashed. Taste has not been a priority. Looking at those sad, pale, tasteless things, you could easily forget there's a whole world of flavours and colours waiting to be discovered, including many "heirloom" varieties that were left behind as the unsquashable supermarket tomatoes took over.

This season I'm growing Green Zebras (green stripes with a subtle orange flush, very refreshing taste), Yellow Pears (firm texture, citrusy taste), Tommy Toes (fantastically prolific & flavoursome golf-ball sized red tomatoes), and my favourite... a small orange cherry so sweet it's like bursting an especially intense grape in your mouth. Above is a photo of these varieties.

Last year I also grew Black Krims, which when sliced, provide darkly beautiful and intricate food mandalas for the salad plate.

You can get seeds for these, and many more varieties of tomatoes, from seed companies that work to keep these old varieties alive.

Digger's Seeds: http://www.diggers.com.au/

Eden Seeds: http://www.edenseeds.com.au/

Greenpatch Seeds: http://www.greenpatchseeds.com.au/

These companies also have selections of certified organic seeds (Greenpatch are completely organic). These open-pollinated seeds give us back control over our own food supply, because you can save the seeds from your harvest and grow them again next season.

If you've never tried a just-picked tomato, warmed and juiced up by the afternoon sun, perhaps sliced open with a little sprinkling of sea salt, then quick put it on your list of things to do before you die.

Or slice them all up together for an insanely colourful bruschetta....mmmm. I have converted tomato haters to tomato lovers with some of these tomatoes! And kids love the little coloured ones.

In future posts I'll share hints for growing tomatoes in containers or on worm farms, with minimum space requirement.