Micro gardening for any space and budget

This month, I want to talk to the readers who don’t have big gardens, or large spaces to garden in.

Maybe you only have a patio? No problem! Patios can offer wind protection and a warm, sunny spot for mini gardens to thrive.

Crops that are easy to grow on patios include determinate cherry and grape tomatoes, coriander, basil, dill, thyme, oregano, rosemary, chives, spring onions, cutting celery, microgreens, and cos lettuce, just to name a few.

Choose glazed ceramic pots over orange terracotta ones, which can dry out too quickly.

Potatoes can be easily grown in compact fabric bags or food grade buckets with drainage holes drilled into the bottom. Always position your containers where they can receive natural rain.

Heard of Bokashi?

If you don’t have space for a compost heap or tumbler, check out bokashi, an ancient Japanese pre-composting method of pickling food scraps.

This anaerobic (without oxygen) composting method gives you compost in as little as eight weeks. Bokashi requires adding inoculated bran – available at local garden centres – which contains beneficial micro-organisms, to your food scraps in layers in an airtight container that can be drained at the bottom, similar to a worm farm. Once scraps are done fermenting, you can add them directly to patio pots to feed plants, or to a large bucket of soil for constant turnover. You can also water plants with bokashi run-off liquid, diluted in water.

Go vertical!

If you’re short on space, vertical gardening can be effective. You can find vertical plastic and cloth pocket systems at garden centres or online retailers. Or, you can DIY with some power tools and food-grade piping to create your own grow towers.

However, do bear in mind that patio and container gardens need regular feeding because the plants’ root systems cannot grow as deep. Feed your container plants regularly with coffee grounds, chopped banana peels, crushed egg shells, slow-release fertiliser, blood and bone, liquid seaweed, and bokashi compost. Give tomatoes garden lime at the time of planting and flowering to prevent blossom end rot.

Melissa Cox is owner of Papamoa Pick Your Own Flowers, a garden offering affordable pick-your-own flowers for weddings, parties and special occasions. Learn more at: tinyurl.com/papamoaflowers