Cylinder Gardening
Ideal for small spaces and urban schools
Author: Sarah Pounders
Overview
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Cylinder Gardening is an innovative youth garden program developed
under the leadership of Men's Garden Club of Houston, The Leadership
Center, the Harris County Master Gardener Association, and the
Harris County Office of the Texas AgriLife Extension Service.
It is currently offered by the Harris County Master Gardeners
through the Texas AgriLife Extension Service in Houston, Texas.
Extension Agent Dr. Carol Brouwer will gladly share electronic
copies of the Cylinder Gardener Curriculum with interested educators.
For contact information visit the Cylinder
Gardening Web site.
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Cylinder Gardening is an inexpensive and practical way to incorporate gardens in urban settings. It requires no prior gardening experience and little
preparation.
Objectives - Students will plan and create a school
garden using Cylinder Gardening techniques.
Standards (Microsoft
Word document)
Materials:
- 5-gallon buckets
- soil
- seeds
Background
Cylinder Gardening uses cylinders, created by cutting 5-gallon buckets
in half, to build small gardens so that individual students can cultivate
vegetables and experience the food production system from seed to
harvest. These cylinders serve as temporary beds for areas with poor
soil and limited space. You can place them directly on top of soil,
in raised beds, or even over man-made surfaces like concrete.
After students fill cylinders with potting soil and plant seeds,
the only maintenance they’ll need to perform is watering and harvesting!
After harvest, you can toss the plants into your compost. Remove
the cylinders, and either place the soil in the compost or spread
it evenly across the ground.
To accommodate the semester-based growing season, the program recommends
choosing vegetable varieties with compact growth that mature from
seed to harvest in 30 to 90 days. (The table below shows a list
of some crops and specific varieties that have worked well in Houston
where
the project was developed.)
Beans: Contender, Greencrop,
Derby, Topcrop
Beets: Packmaker III, Detroit Dark Red, Green Top
Broccoli: Packman, Green Comet, Green Duke
Cabbage: Greenboy, Early Jersey, Wakefield, Ruby Ball,
Rio Verde, Savoy
Hybrid
Carrots: Danvers 126, Nantes, Red Core, Short n' Sweet, Chantenay
Cauliflower: Snow Crown, Snow King, Majestic
Chard: Fordhook, Vulcan, Rhubarb, Ruby Red
Cucumbers: Sweet Slice, Poinsett, Burpless, Su yo, Pot Luck
Lettuce: Salad Bowl, Buttercrunch, Ruby Red, Red Sail
Onion: Y1015, Grano, Granex
Parsley: Italian Dark Green, Paramount, Triple Curled
Peas: Sugar Bon, Oregon Sugar Pod, Little Sweeties, Snowflakes
Potato: Red Lasoda, Kennebec
Radish: Cherry Belle, Champion, White Icicle, Flamboyant
Spinach: Early Hybrid 7, Melody, Bloomdale, Long Standing
Tomato: Carnival, Celebrity, Dona, President |
Laying the Groundwork
1. Ask students, What are
the basic needs of plants? How do container gardens supply all these
needs?
2. Challenge students to do a site analysis of your schoolyard.
Can they locate a place where vegetables might grow well (6 to 8
hours
of sunlight, plus access to water)?
3. Research vegetable varieties that grow well
in your area during the gardening season you are planning for (fall,
spring, or summer).
Seek out for varieties that require little space to grow – look for
terms such as compact, dwarf, or miniature in variety
descriptions
– or contact your local Extension
Master Gardeners or botanical garden
for a list. Invite your students to vote on what they would like to grow.
Exploration
1. Obtain a collection of plastic 5-gallon
buckets. Buckets used to transport food products work best (check with
your
cafeteria and/or local groceries and delis). Avoid buckets that have held
toxic materials such as paint or cleaners. Have adult volunteers
cut off bucket bottoms and then cut the buckets in half to create
cylinders. (Another option is to leave the buckets intact and drill
holes in the bottom for drainage – this allows you to move the gardens
if you need to.) Students can each have their own cylinder or small groups can share
them, depending on the space and resources available.
2. Fill cylinders with lightweight bagged potting soil that drains well. Include a
slow-release fertilizer if desired (you can also fertilize using
a soluble organic or man-made fertilizer as needed later in the growing
season).
3. Plant seeds as directed on the back of seed packets.
Water gently to settle seeds into the soil.
4. Keep soil evenly moist. Monitor seeds as they grow. Thin seedlings if more sprout than
can grow well in the space available. Water and fertilize as
needed.
5. Harvest when ready and plan a class or schoolwide celebration
of your hard work!
Making Connections
Cylinder gardening is one way to take advantage of limited gardening
space in urban areas. Ask your students to find examples of other
planting opportunities for urban spaces such as window boxes, pots,
hanging baskets, and raised beds. If possible, create container
gardens for students to take home. See our Classroom Project, Gardening
in Containers, for ideas.
Branching Out
- Use the harvest from cylinder gardens for nutrition education classes
and cooking activities to help encourage healthy food choices.
Donate extra harvest from your cylinders to a food shelf or senior
center.
- Another way for urban gardeners to overcome the challenge of
limited space is to obtain a plot of land in a community garden,
which takes advantage of open common areas. As a class, investigate
the American
Community Gardening Association's Web site. Find
out if there are any community gardens in your area
- Plant containers for local senior centers or hospitals to spread
the joy of plants to others in your community.
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© 2009
National Gardening Association