Inside Urban Green

Contoured Plant Based Plastic Bottles Coming From Pepsi. But What About SIPs?

The sub-irrigated planter (SIP) to the left was made from a 3-liter diet Pepsi bottle (see prior post also see how to make them). While it is good news about a new and greener Pepsi bottle, it looks like the days of straight-sided 2 and 3-liter soda bottles are numbered. That is not good news for making soda bottle SIPs.

Coke has already gone curvy. As you can see, a Spider plant is growing in a curvy SIP but it is more difficult to make and not nearly as flexible in design options. From the picture of the new contoured Pepsi bottle above it looks like the same thing will be true for Pepsi SIPs.

Contouring adds strength and perhaps some visual appeal but it is not so green. It may seem a utopian idea but there is real value in making soda bottles straight-sided. Are you thinking Don Quixote rides again? 

Recycling is good but upcycling or repurposing is even better. Soda bottle SIPs are an unintended secondary product of significant value to society.

Having grown plants in them for many years, I believe it could be justified to make them as a primary product. I’ve learned more about growing plants and plant science from soda bottle SIPs than any other information source.

Clear soda bottle SIPs should be helping to grow plants inside every school in the world. They would quickly demonstrate how easy it is to grow plants using sub-irrigation as compared to tricky-to-learn drench and drain watering in traditional pots with drain holes.

Clear SIPs teach recycling, water conservation, some basic plant science as well as an introduction to edible plant growing. What could be more important than learning some simple science along with self-sufficiency about feeding oneself? Learning how to use sub-irrigation on a personal level is a survival skill.

So, my message is to save all the straight sided soda bottles you can find and turn them into SIPs. What a great recycling project this would be for every school in America.

Know that growing edible plants with sub-irrigation is scalable from windowsills to backyards and school yards, to rooftops and balconies to commercial farms. It is not well known by the public that sub-irrigation is widely used in greenhouse growing around the world. It is even employed in field farming in some parts of the U.S.

Why then is it not taught in the public school system? Why are consumer horticulture institutions such as urban botanic gardens not teaching it? Many millions of children who are destined for lives of obesity or hunger deserve better.

via:crispgreen.com

Using plant-based, fully renewable resources, the company plans to manufacture a beverage container with a significantly reduced carbon footprint.

For years, scientists and inventors have offered up futuristic alternatives to the resource-intensive plastic packaging clogging up our landfills and recycling bins. And for just as many years, practical environmentalists have said that these designs are all well and good, but until the day they're used in mainstream commercial production, their impact will be minuscule.

It appears that day may not be as far away as we thought.

The Daily Drain Hole Report » The Big Deception

This is the first in a continuing series about the big drainage deception perpetrated on the American gardening public. A need for drain holes is a bogus teaching that wastes huge amounts of plants, water, time and money. You can easily prove it to yourself. All it takes is a little time and a willingness to unhook from the propaganda. It will cost next to nothing.

There is much more to come. It is long overdue to out the perps. Stay tuned.

About the photos » Normally I black out the background to remove my amateurish cloth backdrop. These unedited photos are as seen by my camera.

The objective is to show the quality of the plants growing in containers with no drainage. Click on the photos to view larger sizes on Flickr. Click on Actions for the menu that includes "View all sizes". 



About the plants » All of the plants are Chlorophytum comosum, common name Spider Plants. They are reputed to be highly susceptible to soluble salts burn. Note that even though there is no drainage there is little or no leaf tipping due to soluble salts burn.

About the growing methods » Top photo - Left plant, sub-irrigated planter (SIP) made from a recycled glass bottle. Note the white cloth wick to move water by capillary action from the reservoir up into the soil/root system. Center plant - growing in expanded clay pebbles in a recycled glass beer bottle (cut in half). Right plant – sub-irrigated planter (SIP) made from a recycled glass beer bottle. These small bottle planters are about 2/3 the size of a standard can, demonstrating that if you supply plants the essentials of light, water and nutrition you do not need a large pot. Most of the plants I see on the web are over-potted, particularly in clay pots that so many gardeners favor. 

Bottom photo – Left plant in white container, sub-irrigated planter (SIP) made from a recycled clear plastic cookie container inside a trash basket cachepot, standing on an inverted trash basket pedestal. Right plant in white container – growing in expanded clay pebbles in an IKEA ceramic cachepot. Other plants are the ones in the top photo.

About the big deception » Drainage of soluble salts is the big deception foisted on consumers as the only reason cited for drain holes. Deception is a more polite word for lie.

If you are maintaining or growing decorative or edible plants in containers with drain holes, know that you have been propagandized, deceived, duped, bamboozled, hoodwinked, ripped off, rolled or conned. Take your pick. It is the big lie of consumer horticulture. 

Stay tuned for more about who and why.

Global Buckets » Less is More

Grant and Max Buster did a very good job of presenting the "simple SIP" design on their website.

Incidentally, if you are wondering about their use of the Miesian "Less is more" as a page title, they probably have heard a lot of this jargon; their father is an architect.

I wonder if either or both of them are considering a career in architecture. Their experience would be most valuable to the profession. Most architects get little or no training about horticulture. These young men already know more about modern but simple urban food production methods than most practicing horticulturists, including those in the USDA extension program.

Their question below about the durability of recycled food containers and inverted nursery flats is likely one that many people have. The ultimate answer to the question should not be theoretical; it should be based on user experience.

Recognize that I do not currently have an outdoor test garden. Finding space for a SIP test and demonstration garden is at the top of my prioity list. 

These are my beliefs supported by beta testing and my many years of prior knowledge and experiences. I believe the recycled plastics in the “simple SIP” will hold up longer than what might be apparent.

Unlike traditional drain hole planters, there is no force of water creating downward pressure. The system should be relatively stress free. With that said, we need to keep in mind that plant roots are extremely powerful. This factor needs evaluation from actual experience. Will the plant roots mangle the recycled plastics? 

Have you had hands on experience with the “simple SiP” that you can share? It would be most helpful to us all.

One question about this system is the durability of the milk containers and the inverted nursery trays. How will they stand up through a growing season?

The designer, Mr. Hyland, requests that if you do try this design to please send feedback on your results. Once again, his website is Inside Urban Green.

via www.globalbuckets.org

 

SIP Reservoirs Made With Perforated Corrugated Drain Pipe

Some of the sub-irrigated planters (SIPs) shown on this blog (raised beds, mortar box, windowbox SIPs Flickr photo set) were made using perforated corrugated drainpipe. The pipe(s) form the water/oxygen reservoir.

Most of the pipes shown in the SIP photos came from a Lowe’s store here in Brooklyn last summer (2010). Little did I know that it was seasonal and not a standard store item. The perforated pipe was rigid in a 10-foot length and cost about $5.50.

It is possible the source of this perforated corrugated drainpipe is Hancor, Inc. I will inquire in the coming week. Inquire on your own if you have an immediate need. They are not likely to sell directly to you as a consumer but they can say where the pipe might be available at retail.

Bottom line, it now appears that the type of pipe I bought is not widely available at retail in the U.S.  An alternative is the FLEX-Drain shown above (available in 12' & 25' lengths). Their website indicates that Lowe’s, Menard’s and Ace Hardware among others are retail sources. I do not know how widely available it is. Your feedback will be helpful to other readers.

If I were making sub-irrigated raised bed or box planters at this time, I would use inverted nursery trays to form the reservoir system. The good news is that they are free. You will need to do some scouting at your local garden centers and landscape contractors. There are tons of them out there. You just need to take the time to search.

There are many other types of recycled food containers that would work equally as well. It depends on what you eat and what is available to you.

Google Docs » A Personal Urban Food Production System

Thanks to the GrowBarrel folks in Minneapolis this DIY information is now online as a Google Doc.

You do not need power tools and PVC to make these sub-irrigated planters (SIPs)

Do your friends a favor and pass the word.

Systems like the Valcent VertiCrop are the servers and mainframes of urban food production. Just as in the digital world, we also need distributed food production power brought to the people on a personal level.

Sub-irrigated (sub-aerated) planters (SIPs) like this one are the PCs and laptops of personal urban food production. You might also think of them as the iPads and iPhones of food.

There is no need to plug them into tillable earth. They are portable. All that is needed is a small space with sufficient sunlight, be it on a rooftop, balcony, driveway, paved patio or even a fire escape. They will produce more food per square foot than in-ground gardening while conserving water and valuable time. This is safe food production with no exposure to contaminated city soil.

Minneapolis » A Community Grows in GrowBarrel Sub-irrigated Portable Micro Gardens

She is creating the soil wicks around the recycled plastic jugs that form the water and oxygen reservoir system. It doesn't get any simpler than this. PVC and power tools not necessary. All you need is a water tight container and a place in the sun. It could even be a raised bed made water tight with sheet plastic.

Alex Hemke and Jennifer Nicklay fill a homemade GrowBarrel with soil Saturday at Van Cleve Park. The barrels are a sustainable alternative to a traditional garden.- photo Joseph Michaud-Scorza

A neighborhood community group in Minneapolis is “rolling out” barrels of fresh vegetables in portable micro garden planters they named GrowBarrels.

This is an inspiring story of community involvement in building sub-irrigated (aka “self-watering”) planters (SIPs) from recycled plastic barrels. The interior “plumbing” is also made from recycled plastics following this basic method.

The Southeast Como Improvement Association has discovered the best of all worlds. There is no waiting list in this community garden, there can be an unlimited number of growers and it does not require valuable city land.

Neighbors meet in workshops to build the portable micro gardens but the gardens go home with each of them. Home is clearly the best place to grow some fresh food. Every family member, young and old, can participate.

We could make a very significant contribution to the supply of local fresh food in cities if groups of people in all cities got together to do what these folks are doing in Minneapolis. This could be done block by block. All it will take is some leadership and education about building SIPs.

Look at these photo sets. They tell the story in great detail.

via www.mndaily.com

Illinois » Farming Concrete...Here Kitty, Kitty

It struck me that this sub-irrigated portable mini garden made from recycled kitty litter buckets had a colorful and playful quality and thought it would make a neat kids garden.

We have thousands of schools across the country that do not have school gardens. What they do have in abundance however is concrete, kids, and art and science teachers.

Working with sub-irrigated planters (SIPs) like these who knows the creative designs that would come out of the minds of art and science teachers working together? These SIPs are science based but in my view have play dough and finger paint qualities.

We could easily have very low cost but highly productive school gardens like this in every public, private and day care school in America. They would go a long way in solving our obesity, poor nutrition and hunger problems.

Sub-irrigated planters (SIPs) also teach some good science and simple technology. In my experience, there is as much or more STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) in gardens created from SIPs than there is in traditional dirt gardening. These DIY SIPs also teach recycling, and respect for the environment by saving water and eliminating runoff.

To enhance plant science learning, it would be an easy matter to make clear walls on one side of some of the planters so that students could see the root system and capillary action at work. This could be done quite easily with clear Plexiglas and an adhesive like Goop. Drug store type hydrogen peroxide would take care of any algae growth.

Another advantage of portable micro gardens is that the SIP components can go home with kids over the summer. A rules-based SIP “adoption” program solves the problem of summer recess maintenance and provides even more student learning opportunity. Kids can learn valuable personal self-sufficiency skills by growing food at home during summer vacation.

What we need to make this happen are mainstream parents who are not dirt gardening ideologues to speak up. Currently we have too many misguided school administrators, teachers and gardening parents who think that “garden” and “growing” are synonyms for dirt.

Many of them are hooked into thinking that grandiose greenhouse projects costing as much as $2 million dollars are necessary. For example, think Edible Schoolyards and Alice Waters. Expensive projects like these are a superfluous luxury in a down economy, with rising food prices and so many people unemployed.

The real culprit behind this dilemma is our broken horticultural education system led largely by the USDA Extension Program and urban botanical gardens. I rarely find progressive information about modern food production methods from any of these institutions. Their comfort zone seems to be from a prior century when we were a rural society and all we knew was dirt farming and gardening.

Those days are gone. We will continue to become increasingly urbanized with an even greater need for technology based food production. It is time to move forward not backwards to a bygone time of Victory Gardens in the dirt. 

Finally, if your kids school won't support a garden like this make one at home. It's easy to do. If you have questions, I'll be happy to help. Comment or email me at urbangreenscaper [AT] gmail.com

Lao Tzu - "Give a Man a Fish, Feed Him For a Day. Teach a Man to Fish, Feed Him For a Lifetime"

This morning I shot a quick video showing how well my tomatoes and peppers are doing in this years batch of self watering containers. Near the end of the video I show how easy it is to fill the water reservoir that does NOT require a PVC or copper tube in order to add more water.

via www.mammablogga.com

Recycling Plastic Food Containers

This looks like another good reuse program initiated by TerraCycle. Recycled food containers are also an excellent source material for making sub-irrigated planters (SIPs). I am long overdue to contact TerraCycle about the benefits of this.

via www.njherald.com

Plants just got greener.

As part of a six-state initiative, 200 Walmart stores throughout the Northeast have partnered with Garden State Growers, a family-owned Hunterdon County nursery, and TerraCycle, a New Jersey based company that specializes in the collection and reuse of non-recyclable or difficult-to-recycle post-consumer waste, to offer a new spin on plastic plant pots for sale at Walmart.

The new eco-friendly option replaces traditional, disposable pots, in which flowers are typically sold, and instead gives plastic containers like Country Crock tubs and I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter tubs a second life.

“It’s all about reducing our environmental impact,” said Stacey Cusack, TerraCycle public relations manager.

Wegmans Celebrates Earth Day Early with In-store Event

This is an interesting item in the news. Trade in your plastic bags for a chance to win a plastic EarthBox. This will iikely have plastic hating dirt huggers in a tizzy.

A better idea would be for customers to bring in their used nursery flats and empty food containers and be shown how to use them in making sub-irrigated planters using utility buckets, tote boxes, mortar mixing boxes, uneeded recycle bins and traditional wooden raised beds. 

via www.newschannel34.com

A series of stations throughout the stores will illustrate how Wegmans and its suppliers are helping to reduce, reuse, and recycle resources. Employees at each station will have a show-and-tell or tasting sample to share.

At the front of the store, customers are invited to bring in plastic bags to recycle for $1 off a new, all-cotton reusable bag. Here they’ll also receive a handout (on recycled paper, of course) outlining points of interest at each station and a raffle entry to win an EarthBox Gardening Kit - a mini-garden on wheels that makes it easy to garden on porch, patio, or deck.

Using Soil Block Makers to Start Seeds

The video demonstrates how I am starting seeds this year. I bought a 3/4" blocker (makes 20 blocks) and a 2" blocker (makes 4 blocks) from PottingBlocks.com. Most of the blocks will go into recycled barbeque chicken container propagators with wicks for sub-irrigation. I will post progress photos of the seedlings in the blocks as they sprout. These photos are from a prior growing season. The blocks should make it much easier to separate and plant the seedlings since the roots will not be tangled together. The blocks "air prune" the roots and keep each seedling separate from the others.

via www.youtube.com