Making Green Zone: materials and construction

In designing Green Zone, I wanted to make sure that materials were cheap or free, that the garden was was easy to build and tend, and that it was portable.

All of the garden containers are reclaimed trash: 8 used tires, 8 shopping bags, and a pair of high-top sneakers. The soil mix consists of 1/3 compost (shout out to Earth Care Farm), 1/3 vermiculite, and 1/3 peat moss: light enough to drain, but meaty enough to provide some nourishment for the plants.

I experimented with the tires. Containers had to drain without losing plants or soil. I put layers of landscape fabric and 1/2″ plastic mesh at the bottom opening of the tire. I ringed the perimeter of the opening with plastic lawn edging, which allowed me to isolate a central planting bed without wasting soil that wouldn’t drain (try drilling a hole in a tire…not fun).

The plastic bags have a similar setup: a couple holes torn in the bottom of the bag and layers of landscape fabric and plastic mesh inside the bottom. Seven of the bags are standard grocery-store shopping bags (no double-bagging!), and I found one snazzy bag decorated with images of $20 bills. More on growing veg in shopping bags in a future post.

The high-tops looked like they would hold a bit more soil than ankle-high shoes. There they were, calling out from the trash on Brown Street on student-moveout weekend: “PLANT ME!”