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| Beginning! |
The easiest and quickest way to make our terrace/ balcony garden greener is to purchase the ‘ready to water’ plants from nearby nursery, no muddy hands. Easier method is to buy some well built ceramic/ plastic pots and start planting the seeds/ seedlings. Using ‘waste’ items in and around home to build plant container is tougher, yet exciting and creative method. Old buckets, Paint buckets (stronger and tougher) are commonly used to grow all varities of plants. Large paint buckets can be successively used to grow ‘trees’. When all old plastic items were exhausted to grow chilly plant and some flowers i started looking for other trash which can be converted to plant container with minimal expenditure. Used some plastic bottles, but somehow still i am finding it difficult to grow some plant in them. Finally my eyes fell on old, unused, partially destroyed wooden door which was bearing the brunt of all three seasons in backyard.
Send your innovative ideas of terrace gardening to hingyake@gmail.com
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| Plastic bush to raise the door |
Using a wooden door has its advantages and disadvantages. I had no doubt that the door will bear the weight of the potting media and the plants but placing the door directly on the floor of the terrace means continous wetness beneath the door which might seep through the roof. Problem would be solved by creating a small gap between the door and the floor. Since i could not find any trash to heighten the door, i thought of alternatives. There were few cement bricks lying in the roof but if the height is more then stability will be less. Finally i decided to buy 6 plastic bush from nearby hardware store and fixed it to the door with screws. 2 inches of gap below the door is good enough for cleaning purposes.
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| Good enough space for cleaning |
Took 6 unequal wooden bars from Home Trash store! Fixed it vertically at the ends and in the middle of the door. Ofcourse opposite to the plastic bush! Now the door looked like container and only thing missing was side wall to support the potting media.
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| Vertical wooden bars |
For side wall i opted an old plastic tarpaulin sheet and tied it to the vertical wooden bars. (Now after seeing the status of other tarpaulin sheet i have decided not to use them in future. Weather will wither the sheets in a year or so and its almost impossible to remove the tiny bits of plastic from the potting media)
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| Final makeover with seedlings! Used some waste paper carton to provide additional support to side walls |
Potting media consisted of red soil, cocopeat and kitchen waste compost. Filled the door, now a container, with potting media upto 1 – 11/2 feet. Fortunaltely, the plastic bush and the plastic sheet did not broke! Shifted and planted 3 chilly and one okra seedlings from small containers to the newly made Trash plant container. Its 3 months since i prepared this container. It has withstood the heavy rains last month. Okra plant was heavily infested with spider mites, had to remove it. Chilly plants are happily flowering and have harvested more than 250 gm of chillies and still counting!
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| After 3 months, healthy chillies and 'infested' Okra |
Total cost for container: For plastic bush, screws and nails – 40 / -
Time consumed: 1 hour
Worthfulness: Cannot be priced!
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| Started harvesting! |
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