Black and crumbly

[desperance]

I've been out in the yard, doing stuff - and it occurs to me, y'know, I don't really garden. Well, I can't, I don't have a garden. All I've got is a concrete yard with a lot of pots and a couple of mock-beds in it. And yes, I grow a few things, largely herbs and the odd vegetable (and rhubarb - is rhubarb a fruit or a vegetable? Botanically speaking? If there's a difference?); but mostly, what I do is make compost.

I love making compost. I chuck Stuff into one of the bins, and a year or so later I have lovely black crumbly compost, it's really clever. The challenge is what to do with it all, as I don't have soil to improve. More pots! More pots! I should really make a more organised attempt to discover which veggies do or don't flourish in pots - but I am the opposite of organised, and I don't suppose pure homemade compost is the ideal medium anyway for most veggies, and I don't want to get into the science of all that because it could only lead to the importing of topsoil and sand and whatever more I'd need to mix the ideal medium, which would only exacerbate my problem of quantity.

The alternative, of course, is to break through the concrete and make a proper garden. Every year, I think I might do that. Every year, so far, I don't...

Also, I have been sprouting beans to make beansprouts, and I seem to have discovered how to waterproof muslin. This is not an advantage, in the circumstances...

Comments

[timill]

Anything with shallow roots should do OK in a pot, or even a raised bed, and I believe that potatoes do well in tall urns (which are, I believe, sold for just this purpose).

[uninvitedcat.livejournal.com]

I believe the technical difference between fruit and veg (and I am in no way an expert!) is that fruits have seeds, vegetables don't. Hence, a tomato is technically a fruit.

And incidentally, if you've got any of those old waist-high bins, you can use them as a pot for potatoes. I know this to be true because I watched Monty Don on Gardener's World once. :nods:

[volterra.livejournal.com]

You could sell the compost to your neighbors.....

[martyn44.livejournal.com]

Rhubarb fruit or vegetable? Neither. Its a monster. Have a look at the rhubarb at Belsay if you don't believe me.

As for breaking concrete, there are two alternatives. One, you hire a kango and shortly thereafter decide it was a bad idea. Two, you decide it was a bad idea and don't hire a kango. You could just have a go at it with a bolster and chisel, but you aren't that stupid. Or you could pay someone to do it for you.

That where that £11000 was going . . .

[cristalia.livejournal.com]

There are a lot of tomato plants that'll do pots well (although you might want to get big pots). Great list and primer here!