The Foody: Time to Plant
Back in February, we introduced you to the Foody, a revolutionary new way to allow you to plant a wide range of fruit and veg in the tiniest of spaces. In February it was only warm enough to build it and get used to how it worked and make plans for what we would plant in it one sunny day. Well, that sunny day has finally arrived so here is how the Foody looks planted up and what we think of it so far…
Our Foody, all planted up and looking great!
As we explained in our previous blog, the Foody is a vertical growing system which only needs a fraction of the water and space of traditional growing methods. You can choose different numbers of tiers depending on how tall you want to go. We are trialling the Foody 5, the daddy of the Foody world! So, what did we do?…
Well, we had already built the Foody when it arrived back in February so we were raring to go. We just needed to add our growing medium (compost, coir, whatever you prefer) and decide on what plants/seeds we were going to grow.
First you need to fill up your Foody with some compost
As we have the Foody 5, we had a whopping 39 spaces to fill! That’s a lot of different types of fruit and veg. We have gone for a yummy selection of things which we love to eat including:
- Bush tomatoes
- Courgettes
- Different types of salad leaves
- Spinach
- Rocket
- Radish
- Spring onions
- Strawberries
- Lots of different kinds of herbs.
We have all of these things growing in traditional methods around the garden too so we can compare how well the Foody works to them.
We needed lots of plants and seeds to fill our Foody!
The Foody looks really stylish and makes a real statement in the garden. It is also well made and looks like it will last well. It was great fun planting up the Foody as it’s such an unusual way to garden. To be able to fit all of this fruit and veg into such a tiny corner of our garden is amazing and we think it would be a wonderful solution for those with little space or who want to try “grow your own” without giving up too much garden space. The whole Foody spins easily so you can turn it around and make sure all areas get good sunlight as well as making it easy to water.
Gently plant your fruit and veg into the different pods (or
you could plant flowers to make an amazing floral sculpture!)
We are also very interested to see if it means our courgettes can escape being ravaged by slugs and snails or if they will make the journey up high! As our garden is a little windy and as we have the super-tall Foody 5, Daddy has had to build a collar for the Foody so that it doesn’t fall over in the wind. It would be good if the taller Foodies came with something to help stabilise them. Or if you live in a windy area then just choose one of the two shorter Foodies which will solve this issue.
Once planted, water your Foody. The clever reservoir
in the bottom holds the water so you use much less water.
We will keep you posted as the season goes on but we are certainly loving our Foody adventure so far. For more information on the Foody visit LIFE.
Lulu x
Introducing the Foody…
We were sent a weird but wonderful new contraption through the post this weekend and I had lots of fun showing M&D how to build it (they needed an expert like me to keep them right). Read on to find out what it is and what we are going to be doing with it…
What in the world could this bed? A space ship?
A cup holder? Read on to find out more….
The Foody is a vertical growing system designed to provide the perfect environment to grow herbs, salads and flowers. It also only requires 10% of the water used in a traditional garden and can be used indoors or outdoors.
It’s a funky hat, that’s what it is!
But Lulu, how does it work I hear you ask? Well, when you water the top pod the water slowly drains down to the reservoir in the bottom. Cleverly, there are six extra pots down there with wicks which can use this water too.
Lookee here, there are pots at the bottom and the
rope acts a wick to sook up all the water from below
As it can also be used indoors (and it looks pretty cool too) it means you can be growing salads and herbs all the year round, even up here in chilly Scotland!
I start to add the towers on to our reservoir. You can choose a
Foody 3, 4 or 5 which have different levels to suit you
And if you really want to, you can even add a pump so that the watering is done automatically (watering is one of my favourite parts though as I get to splash in the water and look for fruit and veg at the same time!)
Wow, it’s getting tall now, I need a
little hand to reach up to add this pod!
The Foody is perfect when you have limited space and can be used in greenhouses, balconies, roof terraces, patios, you name it. And it cleverly rotates too so that you can make sure all sections get their share of the sun as required.
You get some material to add to the bottom of each pod to stop
any soil being washed down through the drainage holes
And as you can see from the pics it is super easy to put together. We’ll be trialing a selection of fruit and veg in our Foody 5 (you can grow all sorts in them and I will be growing strawberries, tomatoes, radish and tomatoes to name just a few) over the coming months and will keep you posted of our results.
Wow, our Foody 5 is waaaaay tall!
For more information on the Foody go visit the lovely people over at LIFE.
Plus you get a free box for hours of fun!
Lulu xx