It has been complicated to have extra money to buy potters and therefore we choose to take all we can. In this case it is a box with cracked bottom, that we use to put the first potatoes.



Garlic, after a few attacks of my dogs, continue to grow visibly.



One of the lettuces that we planted from seed and then transplanted to this vessel.



The cabbages that we had bought ... and I don't know why they are white ...



One of the pots planted where spices.





Radishes nearly ready to eat.



The mulberry tree with new leaves.

Composting - ready to use after about four months

Composting - we are in the process of collecting organic waste, where I put a layer of organic debris, such as vegetable peelings, and land on top

Our working colleagues are still protesting about salaries reductions, and some of us already suffered the cuts without any warning or protest.

As such, where there is little, how to fight again the even less?

Then I remembered to use our engineering, effort, and yes some money, to create a home vegetable garden (and my friends, I now realized that the idea is hardly original, since the U.S. president, is creating a Vegetable Garden at the White House).

I think that having the initial investment and creating an almost self-sustaining vegetable garden, on worst of times there will be some vegetables to eat and defeat hunger.

Some points that we will try to follow are:

in excess of production, trying to freeze and store.

in the vegetable garden nothing is wasted and everything is reused and converted back to use again.

seek to save a crop seeds or shoots for the next season and avoid further investment in seeds.

seize and capture the most of what is still provided by nature, light and water.

make an organic garden, trying to fight diseases and pests with organic methods.

involve children in order to give them a new occupation that involves and motivates.

With this project in mind I went into researching how to make this vegetable garden without terrain, in the middle of town, using the space I have.

We summarize some vegetables, that we eat regularly and what seemed like a good starting point.

These are: potatoes, cabbage, lettuce, peas, beans, tomatoes, garlic, carrot, parsley, oregano, chives

Here I began to have problems, since it seems that in Portugal there aren't many people to get in such adventure (I wonder why ?!?) and searches return mainly Brazilian information.

Well, ok, after some amount of effort I found the Portuguese Planting Calendar that provides the basis and added the information from our cousins in Brazil, complemented by our neighbors English knowledge, I began to form the first ideas.

In the first place, don’t even start to think, that a vegetable garden involves an earth field and terrain.
2nd, yes, you can make compost without involving smell, space and ground, thus reusing and recycling the organic wasting produced daily by people.
In third place, no, it doesn’t take hours a day around the vegetable garden. Actually I read in some of the websites of my research, that a person devoting one hour per day at the vegetable garden, can produce enough for a family of 10.

In future topics I will post the progress of our urban vegetable garden in containers

This weekend I had the chance to visit a typical small farm and once again I took some photos form the little beauties that were there.

I hope you can enjoy !