The long arms of the potatoes in a long grain rice bag!

The young people doing the Planetary Health Initiative’s Permaculture Design Course are working flat out today on a design for their dream Planetary Health demonstration site at the old Katoomba Golf Course. There are more photos at the end of this post!

At a session on urban permaculture this morning, Amelie, one of our young teachers, asked everyone to find a ‘container’ to grow a garden in …

This gave me the inspiration for today’s action for A Year In a Day. When we shared our ‘containers’ with each other, I pulled out a large bulk rice bag as a potential garden container. After the session I decided to actually give it a try – to give it another life rather than to throw it out.

Rice bags are strong and should at least last long enough to grow a crop of potatoes. It’s been bothering me that I ran out of room in my garden beds for more potatoes (there were so many left), so this thought struck a chord!

Two weeks ago I attempted to salvage some of the potatoes that I hadn’t gotten around to planting. Check out how much the ones I did plant have grown in such a short time:

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So today I lined the rice bag with wet newspaper (so that light through the plastic wouldn’t make the potatoes green), punctured holes for drainage and to let the ‘arms’ of the potatoes out, and filled the bag with soil. It’s taller than my garden pots, so am hoping it might actually work quite well!

I also put a box of potatoes and soil in a plastic carry basket that someone had dropped off here; and put more potatoes in a broken worm farm. If they take off I’ll raise the sides so they can grow higher. It’s a win/win – they were all things I would otherwise have thrown out that are now having a chance to grow more life. And I wouldn’t have done it without the class exercise this morning.

There’s a section of concrete in my yard where I already have a bathtub and a wicking bed, so will see how I go with these containers as well. Even though the crops may be small it will at least give me some fresh seed potatoes down the track.

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And here are some more photos of the students today: