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Bags of vegetables
This is the Sustead vegebag, it's a vegebag to grow vegetables in, not to have them delivered to your home in.
2010
The first photo accompanying this email was taken in June 2010, just as I was starting to harvest produce from my Sustead Vegebag. As times are hard and vegetables getting more expensive, there must be people who have regretted covering their gardens with concrete or other materials which prevent them from growing their own vegetables. The Vegebag might help these people to start growing a few vegetables again without yet another garden make over. The vegebag is made up from two 9ft. x 6ft. plastic tarpaulins with eyelets every 3ft., that can be bought from most DIY stores. If the tarpaulins are laid out like a cross the arms measure 1.5ft. each. New 6mm eyelets are made every two inches along all the sides of the cross, and then they are laced up using cable ties. This will form a box with a base 6ft.x6ft. and sides of 1.5ft. I have discovered that two crossbars,instead of the one shown in the first photo, are better, because if you have them near the front and back of the bag they will pull the two sides upwards instead of inwards. A slight hump across the center of the vegebag will help drainage to the corners.
Now to fill the Vegebag with a growing medium. Soil is far to heavy, and you have a volume of about two cubic yards to fill, so bought compost would be far too expensive. What is needed is something free, light, and fairly easy to obtain - leaves. Last autumn I collected as many leaves as I could from around my village, something I had meant to do for many years but never bothered doing. I intended to moulder them down for my garden, but during the winter I dreamed up the Vegebag. Don't think you have to live in rural Norfolk to get plenty of leaves, cities are plagued with them, and some councils even think of chopping down beautiful conker trees because of them. If you make your Vegebag before the leaves begin to fall you will have a receptacle for them; although I would suggest you collect enough to fill it and then plenty more, if you can. Although you can speed up mouldering by chopping up the leaves, you will not have anything looking like leaf mould before you are ready to plant your first seedlings. This is the situation I arrived at in the spring of 2010, so I decided to make trenches in the leaves and use bought compost. I used about 100 litres of it.
At the time the photos were taken the Vegebag contained 7 minicole cabbages in two rows, 5 dwarf beans in a row, 4 cauliflowers in a row, and a courgette plant on three of the four corners. My first minicole cabbage weighed over 4lbs, and the second just under 3lbs. The courgettes have excelled themselves. I have harvested over 10lbs from each of the three plants in the bag. I would suggest growing a little less per bag, and remember, the plants were grown in bought compost with leaves making up the bulk of the bag, so growth was very good.
When I started the Sustead Vegebag experiment I wanted it to pay for itself in one year, so I bought tarpaulins for £1.99, but you get what you pay for. While they are claimed to be rot proof, I am sure they have not been UV protected. In less than two months they began to tear and crumble, starting on the sunny side and eventually all round.
2011
That was last summer, but now I have made my Sustead Vegebag mark 2, and I am looking forward to another summer of experimenting with this idea of growing vegetables. The second picture, the water butt, is filled with leaf mould and the residue of the compost I needed to get my first vegebag started. The butt was not all I filled up, I also had some 25 litre bags of mould. This year I intended to use no bought compost at all, and I have not needed to.
The last three pictures are: the bag ready to plant out, planted out, and growth a few weeks later. I have harvested three caulies, a cabbage, and some courgettes, so far.
I think there are four stages to mouldering: first is the gathered leaves, then chopped leaves, followed by flaked leaves, and finally mouldered leaves. The elbow grease begins with the collecting. Then about March you can start chopping; this can begun earlier, but the leaves become more crumbly as time goes on, so don't rush into the chopping stage. Starting to flake the leaves by grating them in a metal sieve can start at this time, but, as I have said, the longer you wait the more crumbly they become. The final stage will not really start to ccur until the end of summer. But more elbow grease, in the form of sieving and grating, will be needed then if you want to hurry things up. This will empty the bags ready for leaf collection for the next summer. I spent the November months sieving/grating the very crumbly leaves into mould. Flaked leaves can be used as a growing medium, and I have done this in plastic pots. Adding some compost or leaf mould would be a help, but is not essential.
The really is an idea fit for urban gardening, I watched five Norfolk council workers, up to their knees in leaves, clearing one of the main roads out of Norwich. This road was full of houses, whoes owners were paying, in their rates, for this asset to be taken away. The city council also made national headlines as few years back, for wanting to cut down beautiful conker trees because of leaf problems.
2010
The first photo accompanying this email was taken in June 2010, just as I was starting to harvest produce from my Sustead Vegebag. As times are hard and vegetables getting more expensive, there must be people who have regretted covering their gardens with concrete or other materials which prevent them from growing their own vegetables. The Vegebag might help these people to start growing a few vegetables again without yet another garden make over. The vegebag is made up from two 9ft. x 6ft. plastic tarpaulins with eyelets every 3ft., that can be bought from most DIY stores. If the tarpaulins are laid out like a cross the arms measure 1.5ft. each. New 6mm eyelets are made every two inches along all the sides of the cross, and then they are laced up using cable ties. This will form a box with a base 6ft.x6ft. and sides of 1.5ft. I have discovered that two crossbars,instead of the one shown in the first photo, are better, because if you have them near the front and back of the bag they will pull the two sides upwards instead of inwards. A slight hump across the center of the vegebag will help drainage to the corners.
Now to fill the Vegebag with a growing medium. Soil is far to heavy, and you have a volume of about two cubic yards to fill, so bought compost would be far too expensive. What is needed is something free, light, and fairly easy to obtain - leaves. Last autumn I collected as many leaves as I could from around my village, something I had meant to do for many years but never bothered doing. I intended to moulder them down for my garden, but during the winter I dreamed up the Vegebag. Don't think you have to live in rural Norfolk to get plenty of leaves, cities are plagued with them, and some councils even think of chopping down beautiful conker trees because of them. If you make your Vegebag before the leaves begin to fall you will have a receptacle for them; although I would suggest you collect enough to fill it and then plenty more, if you can. Although you can speed up mouldering by chopping up the leaves, you will not have anything looking like leaf mould before you are ready to plant your first seedlings. This is the situation I arrived at in the spring of 2010, so I decided to make trenches in the leaves and use bought compost. I used about 100 litres of it.
At the time the photos were taken the Vegebag contained 7 minicole cabbages in two rows, 5 dwarf beans in a row, 4 cauliflowers in a row, and a courgette plant on three of the four corners. My first minicole cabbage weighed over 4lbs, and the second just under 3lbs. The courgettes have excelled themselves. I have harvested over 10lbs from each of the three plants in the bag. I would suggest growing a little less per bag, and remember, the plants were grown in bought compost with leaves making up the bulk of the bag, so growth was very good.
When I started the Sustead Vegebag experiment I wanted it to pay for itself in one year, so I bought tarpaulins for £1.99, but you get what you pay for. While they are claimed to be rot proof, I am sure they have not been UV protected. In less than two months they began to tear and crumble, starting on the sunny side and eventually all round.
2011
That was last summer, but now I have made my Sustead Vegebag mark 2, and I am looking forward to another summer of experimenting with this idea of growing vegetables. The second picture, the water butt, is filled with leaf mould and the residue of the compost I needed to get my first vegebag started. The butt was not all I filled up, I also had some 25 litre bags of mould. This year I intended to use no bought compost at all, and I have not needed to.
The last three pictures are: the bag ready to plant out, planted out, and growth a few weeks later. I have harvested three caulies, a cabbage, and some courgettes, so far.
I think there are four stages to mouldering: first is the gathered leaves, then chopped leaves, followed by flaked leaves, and finally mouldered leaves. The elbow grease begins with the collecting. Then about March you can start chopping; this can begun earlier, but the leaves become more crumbly as time goes on, so don't rush into the chopping stage. Starting to flake the leaves by grating them in a metal sieve can start at this time, but, as I have said, the longer you wait the more crumbly they become. The final stage will not really start to ccur until the end of summer. But more elbow grease, in the form of sieving and grating, will be needed then if you want to hurry things up. This will empty the bags ready for leaf collection for the next summer. I spent the November months sieving/grating the very crumbly leaves into mould. Flaked leaves can be used as a growing medium, and I have done this in plastic pots. Adding some compost or leaf mould would be a help, but is not essential.
The really is an idea fit for urban gardening, I watched five Norfolk council workers, up to their knees in leaves, clearing one of the main roads out of Norwich. This road was full of houses, whoes owners were paying, in their rates, for this asset to be taken away. The city council also made national headlines as few years back, for wanting to cut down beautiful conker trees because of leaf problems.
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Comments
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You need to use one of the photo host sites mentioned yesterday0
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I'm unable to see the pics also.0
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I'm afraid the pics accompanying this post are in skydrive in Hotmail. I really didn't believe that I would have to open skydrive every time I wanted to show the pics. As I do all my stuff on a public library computer about once a day, your chances of seeing them are slim. Thanks a million Bill Gates.0
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It is quite possible that I am the only person that can see any pictures, don't blame me I didn't write the software. When I logged on I couldn't see any pictures, but after opening skydrive I could.0
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Could you try hosting the pics on image shack or similar?
re leaf mould, worth considering with horse chestnut trees leafs that you should identify whether the trees thay have fallen from are infested with the nasty moth or the more serious disease that Horse chestnuts are suffering from, and if they are gather leaves in the area and burn them. (Our advice from the tree surgeon who visited us). we have the moth and he guestimates three years of burning should see us substantially reduced. Its a shame as there are planty of leaves from it and it would be valuable as leaf mould, but not if it puts the trees at further risk!0 -
bumping for colin S0
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That's a very big plug for your product with the repeated mention of its name. Is it being marketed commercially, Colin?0
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That's a very big plug for your product with the repeated mention of its name. Is it being marketed commercially, Colin?
I don't see a "product". I see a tarpaulin, some string, a bit of timber and some netting.
Looks quite useful if you've no real ground.
If you lend someone a tenner and never see them again, it was probably worth it.0 -
When my neighbour was having an extension built the builders had loads of those bags that sand etc comes in. just going in the skip, i asked for them to save them for me to use as raised beds.
Why buy bags when you can have the same thing for nothing.
Just look up and down your road and ask, do your bit for the environment save on landfill and get them for free.Liverpool is one of the wonders of Britain,
What it may grow to in time, I know not what.
Daniel Defoe: 1725.
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