Sunday 30 September 2012

Hot box project update.

We have been trying to use as much of the garden space as possible this year as well as the allotment in an effort to produce as much as possible of our food. Unfortunately this year was a really bad year for growing food due to the weather but despite this we have done quite well and had a few successful projects along the way. Now that most of the fruit and vegetables have been preserved I can show you one of these... I call them the hot boxes.

We have a really warm spot in the garden, a real sun trap, it's where I sit to relax and read a book....and it's where I got to thinking what an ideal spot this would be to grow some extra food. Unfortunately the downside to this idea is that there is no soil here, we already have pots of herbs along this wall but there was lots of wasted space.


So my husband came up with this.... rows of extra planting areas....just like window boxes. They have been quite successful this year and suffered much less slug damage than the vegetables planted in the ground. The above photograph was taken in the spring when they were just planted up, the top box has radishes, easy to care for and pick as you need them for lunch. The idea was to keep them going all summer on a rotation so more seeds were planted as the food was eaten.

The lower box in the photograph was planted up with a row of spring onions and a row of chantenay carrots, as these are small enough to fit.


These are some of the carrots, quite a good haul. We really enjoyed our experiments into vertical gardening and making the best use of our space, the boxes were a really good height for the children to help out with and too high for the chickens to help with....thankfully.

If you would like to make some yourself my husband has written about them here.

10 comments:

  1. Your carrots look great, we have never had much luck with those, not had much luck with most of what we have grown this year. Hopefully next year will be better x

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    1. It has been quite a bad year for growing fruit and vegetables, I think everybody has had some problems. Our carrots planted in the ground didn't grow very well at all....so the hot box project definitely saved us :) Fingers crossed for a good year next year.

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  2. That is such a good idea! We're trying to maximise our garden space this year too and could use these on our sunny window ledges x

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    1. Definitely.... who says window boxes should be just for flowers, perfect for growing extra food :)

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  3. What a great idea :) You can never (well almost never, lol) have too much home grown food!

    Glad you 'found' me again.

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    1. Yes my freezer is filling up for winter. glad to have found your new blog :)

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  4. they look great! Is there a corresponding article on how they were made? ;) Thanks for joining the blogring, am really pleased to finally have it live again.

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    1. Yes I have now added a link to my husband's blog to show you how they are made :)

      Glad to be a member of the blogring :)

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  5. i love the hot box idea :) we also do a fair bit of food growing . looking forward to reading more of your blog. [petits haricots on the blogring]

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  6. Hi Just hopping around the blogring and saying hello.

    What a lovely idea. I am going to suggest this to DH for next year.

    Carol(Welcome to Our World)

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