Your urban vegetable garden in a bac |The Montreal Journal
If you do not have access to a plot of land or if you want to create a vegetable garden where there is simply no accessible soil - for example, in a parking or in an alley - you can consider cultivatingYour vegetables and herbs in a tank.
A vegetable bin on legs
A raised vegetable bin has the advantage of keeping street crops away and thus prevents runoff carrying various contaminants such as hydrocarbons can reach the soil in which edible plants are planted.
Wood is the material that most people choose for the construction of vegetable bins.You can also opt for an rot -proof material such as composite wood, stone or steel plates.
Photo courtoisie, Albert MondorAlthough wood is a widespread and not very expensive material, it can rot quickly in contact with the earth.So opt for a very resistant wood such as oak or thuya-commonly called cedar-, and make sure to cover the inner part of the walls with extruded polystyrene or with a thick geotextile membrane, ideally plasticized.
Avoid treated wood at all costs and rather use roasted wood, since in addition to being little subject to rot it does not emit any toxic substance.You can even burn the wood yourself using a welding torch.This ancestral Japanese technique, called Shou-Sugi-Ban, prevents soil microorganisms from decomposing wood.
So that carbonization effectively protects wood, the boards must be burned at least three millimeters thick.If the wood is not sufficiently burned in depth, the protective carbon crust will disappear after only a few rains.
The vegetable table
Photo courtoisie, Albert MondorUne table potagère bien aménagée peut devenir un point focal, un élément vedette d’un jardin.Variant of the vegetable bin on legs, the vegetable table allows the cultivation of edible plants in an urban environment when it is not possible to do so in the ground.
The vegetable table permet aux jardiniers handicapés qui se déplacent en fauteuil roulant ou à ceux qui n’arrivent pas à se pencher ou à s’agenouiller de profiter du plaisir de jardiner et de récolter des fines herbes et des légumes frais.As it is not directly sitting on the ground, the vegetable table also allows you to prevent rabbits and marmots from coming to crunch the vegetables that are cultivated there.
Economical solution
Photo courtoisie, Albert MondorUne table potagère préfabriquée recouverte d’un agrotextile afin d’empêcher les attaques des insectes ravageurs et des écureuils.
You can easily build a vegetable table yourself.It is simply a question of recovering an old table that you have or that you have found in a garage sale or on the edge of the street - the day after July 1!-, to belt the edge with wooden sides, to cover the interior with a waterproof canvas or a geotextile membrane and to put soil in it.
You can also find prefabricated wooden, steel gardening tables or other materials on the market.Whether new or recovered, make sure that the bottom of your gardening table is pierced with a few holes to allow the surplus watering water to flow.
The gardener's calendar
Works to be carried out at the end of May:
Does the consumption of vegetables cultivated in town present a risk?
Photo courtoisie, Albert MondorDe simples planches de bois composite ont été utilisées pour créer un bac potager autour de cet arbre de rue, sans toutefois ensevelir le collet de son tronc.Some recently carried out scientific studies show that most urban vegetables can be consumed without problem, still taking care to take certain precautions.
In an urban environment, particularly near the large road arteries, it is very likely that dust and soot coming from the combustion of diesel engines are deposited on the leaves and fruits of vegetable plants.Certain contaminants present in the soil can also be absorbed by edible plants, in particular by root vegetables.
Like fruits, mole vegetables and root vegetables absorb nutritive substances and accumulate pollutants differently, three types of vegetable plants were tested as part of a scientific study by researchers from the University ofKansas and published in 2015 in the Journal of Environmental Quality.The majority of tomatoes and cabbage cultivated during the experience displayed low rates of pollutants, on the other hand, carrots received large amounts of lead.
Scientists from the Berlin Technical University have also discovered that certain root vegetables, such as carrots and turnips, cultivated in urban areas where road traffic is high contained high quantities of heavy metals.The results of their study show that the samples which have a lower pollutant rate correspond to vegetable gardens in the areas of the German capital where certain obstacles limiting contamination by heavy metals, such as buildings, the presence ofdense urban forest or a large amount of private parks and gardens.
In private gardens, large atmospheric pollutants such as dust and soot are deposited on the leaves, but are little absorbed by plants.It is therefore a question of cleaning well and washing the vegetables and the leaf vegetables before consuming them.As for root vegetables, it is essential to cultivate them in a healthy soil, rich in compost and free from contaminants-the ideal being to use a commercial soil based on compost and sphagnum peat.It is also important to clean them well or peel before consuming them.
However, edible plants cultivated nearby arteries can be exposed more easily to pollutants, particularly oils, fats and hydrocarbons, at the time of rains where these substances may reach plants because of splashes and runoff.It is therefore preferable to cultivate vegetable plants in raised tank, at a minimum distance of three or four meters from a road.
Build a 5 -step vegetable tray
Photo courtoisie, Albert MondorLes bacs potagers dont les parois sont en acier durent de nombreuses décennies.1.Install your vegetable bin at the full sun
If you want to harvest vegetables in abundance, you must ideally install your vegetable bin in a very sunny place, far from mature trees.Although some edible plants, such as card beet, carrot, spinach, mint and parsley, tolerate a little shade, the majority of vegetable plants require at least six hours of sunshine per day to grow welland develop.
2.Use a lasting material
To make the walls of your vegetable bin, ideally use a durable material such as oak or cedar, composite wood, stone or steel plates.However, do not hesitate to recover certain materials for making your tank.Walls made of bales of straw, branches of braided trees, old concrete blocks or a metal sander will certainly give a lot of charm and originality to your vegetable bin while significantly reducing the cost of its construction.
3.Make a deep tank
There are not really specific rules about the dimensions that a vegetable bin should have.However, so that the vegetable plants are deeply rooted and they have maximum production, you need a tank whose walls are at least 40 to 45 cm (16 to 18 in) in height.As for its width, it should not do more than 90 cm (3 ft), otherwise it will be difficult for you to have access to the center of the bac to be able to weed, water and harvest.
4.Add soil
If your tank is placed directly on earth, it is possible to recover it, after removing the lawn, and mixing compost in order to obtain the desired height.On the other hand, if you install your tank on an asphalt or concreted surface, or on a contaminated soil, it is then necessary to fill it with commercial soil, taking care to separate it from the existing soil using aThick, but permeable geotextile membrane.
5.Create aisles
If you build several bins to make your vegetable garden, be sure to install them at a distance of 30 to 45 cm (12 to 18 in) each other and, on the aisles thus created, spread a thick layer of organic mulk ormineral in order to avoid having to constantly weed them.You can install a geotextile membrane or thick plastic bags recovered under the mulch to prevent the growth of any unwanted grass.
