How To Create A Miniature Garden On Two Square Meters

2024 Author: Sebastian Paterson | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 13:47

Original proposals of Italian landscape designers for urban residents who do not have land plots or for owners of small gardens

At the Expoflor assembly held in Rome in early February for specialists in the field of crop production, a group of landscape designers proposed a project - a miniature "Garden in a Cart". This project is an original solution for all those who love to grow vegetables and flowers with their own hands, but have only very small spaces around the house or tiny balconies. Gardens in trolleys do not require any large special costs, a significant area, since they can be created on an area of less than one square meter. In addition, they are easy to move in case of a threat of frost. What is important, such a project allows you to create an infinite number of options for mini-kindergartens, depending on the capabilities, desires and imaginations of a person. At the same time, it makes it possible to grow your favorite vegetables or flowers.

All you need to create them is an ordinary garden cart, some earth, seeds and … your imagination. For example, I really liked the composition "A Bed for a Hostess" with delicious heads of salads, delicate parsley leaves, artichokes, delicate primrose flowers and strawberry bushes "Nemi" with bright fragrant berries (we talked about this strawberry in No. 12 last year - ed.). All plants planted in it easily tolerate light frosts, so they grow and bear fruit well on a glazed balcony or terrace. And the harvest collected from the cart garden will help the hostess to please the household and guests with greenery at any time of the year.

By the way, the authors of this composition offered an original recipe for a dish made from primrose petals collected from this bed and rice. To prepare it, you will need: 160 g of rice, small leaves and primrose petals, a small onion, a clove of garlic, a bouillon cube, olive oil, and a frying pan with high sides. Pour a few tablespoons of olive oil into this pan, then add a clove of garlic, peeled and cut in half, and a few rings of onions. When the onion begins to brown, add the young leaves and primrose flowers, previously washed. After that, you need to dissolve the bouillon cube in boiling water, add the resulting broth and rice to the pan. If necessary, add boiling water to the pan until the rice is fully cooked. Salt to taste.

The composition "Cabbage" is also interesting - different varieties of cabbage are planted on it diagonally, its sizes were taken into account when planting, and the "play" of shades of green leaves was also used. Such a vegetable garden will provide fresh vegetables for cooking your favorite dishes, and bright butterflies "flying" over the cart will become its decoration. A mini-vegetable garden for obtaining vegetables in an urban setting deserves special attention. Vegetables on it are grown hydroponically, that is, the plants grow in containers (they are located under a panel with holes for "planting" plants), in which the soil is replaced with a solution (water) with nutritious, balanced components.

Two methods of hydroponic growing have been proposed:

Either planting plants in a substrate, or placing plants directly in water with a system to limit evaporation. This mini-vegetable garden is also equipped with a lid that can be used to cover small salad seedlings at night or in case of expected frosts. This method has many advantages in urban vegetable growing, because the areas occupied for it can be easily changed, strictly control the quality of products, and it has a low cost price. At the same time, such a mini-garden is a good help in providing the family with fresh vegetables.

The authors of the Garden in a Cart project did not forget the flower growers who have the northern location of the balconies. For them, the composition of the "Penumbra" garden is proposed, where plants are planted that feel great even without bright sunlight: heuchera, ivy (hedera), hellebore (helleborus). The authors of the project proposed covering the ground with coffee beans, which give a unique aroma to plants, especially pleasant for lovers of this drink. The composition of the trolley "One Day at the Sea" is a beautiful kindergarten, especially pleasing in winter. It will not only serve as a decoration, but also help teach children to take care of plants, and from the "waste" make various crafts reminiscent of summer entertainment.

I also really liked the ornamental gardens: Solnechny - with bright sunflower caps, Lesnoy - with green balls placed at different levels, Urban - with cheerful baskets of nasturtium flowers growing on urban flower beds. All the compositions presented at the exhibition for the "Garden in a Cart" project were composed of "winter" plants, but there was also a composition of the "spring" garden with tulip bulbs of the Blue Neron variety, daffodil variety Acropolis, anemone variety Blanda. A little time will pass, and this garden will also become beautiful! I think that readers of the townspeople who do not have garden and summer cottages may well buy a cart in a gardening store and create in it, using the ideas of the "Garden in a Cart" project, their own unique and favorite corner!