I always wanted to make a wall garden. I love making things and I have a lovely sunny wall outside my kitchen. I also think that we should all be planting our own food in some way, from now on.
Lockdown Level 3 yet again in South Africa was the prompt for me to go ahead and start. I mean, what else do you do when you have time to think and to do? You take note of Mother Earth, that’s what. You try to decrease your ecological footprint as much as you reasonably can.
I have tried to do a few thing better when it comes to being a consumer. Everyone consumes which means we are part of the problem. The problem is an environmental crisis where climate change is king and plastic pollution is queen.
Taking Baby Steps to Decrease our Impacts
- We ecobrick our plastics (which always turn up when shopping on a budget).
- We compost our organic waste in our outdoor worm-rich compost heap. This makes compost for my vegetable garden.
- We save water and electricity. (That initial cold water that comes out of your shower and flows down the drain fits into an empty 5l water container which we use for the kettle)
- We buy groceries weekly, just what we need, only when thigns run out.
- We try to choose a cardboard box instead of a plastic container, or a tin instead of a plastic bottle.
- We take our own reusable bags.
- We donate our old clothing to charities and I only buy clothing and home ware at charity shops.
My Vertical Wall Garden
This is the next step after a vegetable garden that does not quite yield enough food yet. Snails tend to eat most of my budding vegetables which means we only successfully grow spinach, sweet potatoes, chillies, rocket, onions, herbs and peppers. Quite limiting for me, the prolific vegetable eater!
There are many ways to make a wall garden using recycled materials. I chose to use tins as we feed our dogs tinned dog meat and I kept those tins. Let me explain what I did:
- Recycle and clean dog food tins.
- Find a large piece of chicken wire or an old gate or something on which to attach your tins.
- Take a sharp knife and make 2 holes in the bottom of each tin, then 2 holes on the side of each tin.
- Cut strands of wire long enough to thread through the holes in the side of the tin. These will bind onto the main wire wall.
- Thread the wire through the side holes on each tin.
- Now attach the tins to the wire in rows. I did 4 across and 4 down, which is 16 tins.
- Drill holes in your chosen wall to attach the wire wall garden in its entirety. Choose a sunny, warm spot easy enough to water and reach.
- Fill each tin with rich, composted soil.
- Now add seedlings. Water well.
- Wait for them to grow, watering them every day. Eat and be well!
If you want to make a professional look wall garden, take a look here. Good luck!