Interesting concept! The leaves or grass clippings with the good dirt on top, make it much lighter. No drain holes on the bottom! Just one on the side, so the water stays in the pot under the drain. Their results seemed interesting too.

OH and the fertilizer!! LOL!! Will you be using urine in your pots?

They said it only works for certain vegetables. I doubt it would work for Citrus trees or any tree for that matter. Not enough dirt. It would need shallow rooted plants. I bet herbs would be great in there!

Thanks for posting the link!

Very interesting article. I will probably try this in 2011 but with a more 'commercial' fertilizer like dried blood or fish emulsion. Would try now but have no leaves at present.......

DL

Ms dancinglemons, I agree with your fertilizer recommendation. I might even go with water soluable Miracle Grow, but just an idea. All paint departments (walmart, Target, or any) carry these nice 5 gallon paint mixing buckets for really cheap. Drill a hole in the side, fill the thing with autumn leaves, and we have a party!!
Suzi

Hi,

After I built mine using essentialy 100% maple leaves for the bottom part, I did a bit more reading. It seems like many of the advantages of this method is due to the active composting below the soil level that scares off pests and such. Aparently maple leaves (and most other yellow/brown leaves) have a fairly high carbon to nitrogen ratio, and thus extra nitrogen is needed for the composting to get going/continue.

Of course the use of urine (which is actually quite widely discussed on the gardenweb composting forum) results in a lot of nitrogen being available for composting and probably plays a big part in the success of the method. So, whether you use urine or some other source of nitrogen, it seems like you'll need more nitrogen that what you would expect based purely and the plant requirements since the composting process is eating nitrogen.

OH, by the way, I'd suggest filling the container to the top with leaves, compressing them a bit and then adding some more, otherwise the soil that you put on top starts getting lower and lower :)

That's so amazing. It's like gardening on top of a compost pile. The Composting Forum would love this.

Do you pee directly on the veggies? Or do you somehow figure out a way that the pee does not touch the food? This is the craziest thread ever!! I love it!! I am kind of leaning now towards flowers in the pot. I refuse to eat pee!!
Suzi

Why not pour the pee from a container ?