How to Raise Organic Vegetables in the Worst Soil in Giant GrowSacks

What's the best way to grow vegetables organically in land that's just a bog? Is it even feasible? That problem was all too real for one gardener in Ireland. Much of her growing area was a sea of mud all year round.

She knew she could grow a few edible crops in damp soil, such as celery, rhubarb, comfrey, sunchokes (jerusalem artichokes), water cress and the like. Yet nothing edible will tolerate an acid peaty bog.

Grow organic vegetables reliably in giant GrowSacks

Even so, there's one tested method for developing a sustainable organic garden from even the worst possible soil. Get hold of a giant rubble bag, the kind that contractors dump on building sites. Or a big plastic animal feed or cement bag. Fill them with a blend of aged manure, topsoil and sand.

Cut several large punctures in one side and roll the bags over so the holes rest on your boggy ground. Then the plant roots can get access to the damp soil beneath. Set in each bag two chitted (ie. pre-germinated) seed potatoes or, if it's a large poly sack, several potatoes.

Potatoes are a good first choice because, of all vegetables, they produce the maximum nourishment from a small space.

The potatoes will plunge their roots down through the holes in the sack, looking for water. And the crop will grow in the bag, safe from light.

You'll get a vast yield from one GrowSack

You won't get an enormous crop in little manure bags. But a vast builders' sack should yield you many bushels of potatoes. And potatoes need mildly acidic conditions anyway, lest they get scab.

This idea will also work for tomatoes, squash and many other water-loving vegetables, if you have to build an organic garden over dank unpromising soil. It's even possible to grow vegetables below conifers like leylandii which have leached all the nutrients and water out of the soil and made it sterile

Strawberries and other bush fruit that thrive in shade and mildly acidic soil do very well in turned down, perforated builders bags.

If you lack manure or poly bags, use ordinary black plastic garbage sacks. They'll decay into fragments by fall. But this is no matter because then, in any case, you should tip the bag contents on the ground in the place where the bag was.

A 'container garden' that sweetens the soil beneath it

If you use GrowSacks in the same place year after year and throw out their contents after use you'll find, of course, that the soil surface gets slowly higher. Your ground will become less boggy. That's the time to sow fruit and vegetables directly in the ground - at least, those that don't mind acidic conditions.

A tip: if you plan to grow potatoes in that acidic soil, it's a bad idea to spread lime on the ground to sweeten it. They hate lime, and grow scabby. However, once the soil level has been raised, liming the soil would be a very good preliminary to growing other heavy-feeding vegetables like brassica.

Is it not dangerous to grow potatoes in the same place year after year? In theory, yes. But when you use GrowSacks you are raising them above ground, in a fresh soil mix each year. Any disease or insect problems that lurk in the ground below are less hazard to plants grown in bags.

You are not restricted to potatoes, even in the early days. Any water-loving plant should do well in a giant GrowSack, if it can get its roots into the damp soil beneath. Unless the pH of the soil below is below 4 - ie. very acid - you should at east get some crop.

You can also grow watercress in giant GrowSacks

Watercress also grows well in giant GrowSacks on boggy soil - provided the bag is not perforated. Contrary to rumour, watercress can be grown in any damp soil or aggregate, even in a greenhouse. It does not need running water. Pull back the sides of a rubble sack to make a shallow container. Add a few inches of grit or gravel, plus some compost, and water it very well.

Then buy some watercress from a supermarket. Stick the stems in a pot of water. They'll probably grow long fibrous roots. Insert these in your GrowSack and they'll flourish.

If they survive at all, they'll self-seed themselves in time, and you'll never be short of watercress. But you can't grow water cress in stale water. A clever idea is to put it beneath a dripping tap outdoors and punch some holes high in the sides of your GrowSack so the water renews itself. If your water cress fails you nonetheless, at least you'll delight the garden frogs.


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Dr John Yeoman PhD is director of the information network for natural gardening ideas, the Gardening Guild. Discover hundreds of wily plans to grow more food in a garden with less money and work in his practical book Lazy Secrets for Natural Gardening Success. Acquire it entirely free at:
http://www.gardeningguild.org/lazy