GROWING VEGETABLES IN CONTAINERS ON A STAND

The biggest mistake gardeners make each season is starting out too big and then quickly realizing their large plot requires too much weeding, watering, and backbreaking labor. Vertical gardening guarantees a better outcome from the day the trowel hits the soil-by shrinking the amount of "floor" space needed and focusing on climbing plants that are less prone to insects, diseases, and animal pests.Notable author and gardener Derek Fell has tried and tested thousands of varieties of vegetables, flowers, and fruits and recommends the best plants for space-saving vertical gardening. His grow-up, grow-down system also shows which ground-level plants make good companions underneath and alongside climbing plants. Best of all, many of Fell's greatest climbers and mutually beneficial plants are available in seed packets in every local garden center in US.Growing vegetables in containers can be just as easy as growing vegetables in soil,if you know how to work around the limitations of container gardening.

A container vegetable garden has many advantages:

Convenience  Container vegetable gardens are right outside your door, footsteps away from your kitchen.

Freshness  You can’t get any fresher than right off the plant. When growing vegetables in pots or window boxes, you can harvest leafy vegetables as needed.

A potted vegetable garden can be boosted up on plant stands or benches to make the pots more accessible—and add vertical flair to your balcony farm. - See more at: Beauty   Container vegetable gardens are beautiful, not just bountiful. Green, leafy lettuces, red tomatoes, and deep purple

eggplants delight the eye and add interest to any apartment balcony or deck. Growing vegetables in pots or window boxes expands the range of color and form available to container gardeners.

Watering is by far the biggest concern when growing vegetables in containers. Container vegetable gardens have limited root zones, so they need frequent watering—sometimes twice a day in hot weather, or on balconies exposed to lots of sun or drying winds.

Often people refer to west to borrow and adopt in gardening at homes. We in the east have a notion that , Rural is bad,urban is better and Foreign is best. Often this is not true. I have been involved in Rural Rechnologies since devades. Developing countries development solutions should come from locally but not imported. In the west,it is all consumer economy and unless you price any commodity they won’t even look into it while in the east it is reverse. For Example when I designed Growing Green leafy vegetables on book racks(which costs less than 50US$, an American Inventor of Garden equipment design laughed at me and said their system costsUS$ 2000 1 One should not forget the fact that Bulock Cart is still one of the modes of transportation of goods in rural India.

In a bid to have vertical stand vegetable growing,I have designed a simple,innovative,novel cost effective system utilising local resources and resourcefulness.

When you supply plant nutrients at the roots they won’t go deep. I have designed a stand(sturdy,iron) and fitted rings of about 1 foot diameter (3) in 3 layers. There is enough space between the rings horizontally and spece to grow plants vertically. The base has a strong round stand for stability(Iron). Pots(Conical) are filled with soil and animal dung and natural fertilizer. Vegetables seed lings or seeds like tomato,Bhendi and others are raised in the pots. There is a small hole at the bottom of the pots to drain away excess water. The pots chosen are of tough plastic for light weight,durability and elegance. The plastic pots are covered with

thin black canvas so that due to sunlight absorption weeds won’t grow and evaporation water supplied is reduced. Moreover all the nutrients in the container are taken by the plant.The stand is painted with Redoxide to free it from rusting. Since the stand is with in reach,watering is not a problem.

One can use this system to grow vegetables on the roof or in the backyard. Rural women can grow vegetables in this way for markeing on a small scale locally. The units are modular depending on the requirement of vegetables.

The whole unit costs about Rs 2500 including pots and the cost can be recovered in less than a year.

Earlier Dr.Jagadeesh designed a system to grow Niutritious Green vegetables for all to be raised on Book Racks.

Dr.A.Jagadeesh Nellore(AP),India