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This document printed from the University of Illinois Extension Garden Column at http://www.extension.uiuc.edu/williamson/
Other Ways to Garden
June 11, 2009

Ed Billingsley
County Extension Director, Williamson County and Interim County Extension Director, Jackson County
Williamson County Unit
1306 N Atchison Ave, Ste A
Marion, IL 62959
Phone: 618-993-3304
FAX: 618-997-1542
edb@illinois.edu

How many times do we hear I have no place to garden? Well, there are many different ways to accomplish this task.

One way to garden is no-till. This is where the ground is not tilled. One can use cardboard, black plastic, landscape fabric covered with straw, or even concrete blocks. That's right fill one side of a concrete block with top soil. Plant one tomato plant in that side and you will have a great place to raise a tomato, pepper, or eggplant. A stake can be drove down beside the block to tie up the plant.

Covering the ground with cardboard or black plastic will help watermelon, cucumbers, and squash thrive with little weeding on the gardener's part. These practices using mulch reduces the time necessary to grow vegetables.

One gardener is using old tires filled with soil to grow potatoes. Of course, the tires have holes drilled into them for water drainage. While the potatoes grow, he stacks tires one at a time around them and fills each with soil. The tires are now four high and the potatoes look great. The idea is that they will produce potatoes the depth of the tires.

Another gardener covers his potatoes with deep straw. This allows one to pull back the straw, harvest some potatoes, and recover the other potatoes thus allowing them to grow.

The point of this article is to introduce you to other ways to grow vegetables. Even in hanging baskets, the reward is something fresh to eat.

So, how about trying a new technique to grow vegetables? The result will be less work and fresh produce. Who is not for that?

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