[Sca-cooks] Container Gardening (Was Medlars and lovage)

[Stefan li Rous]

  William de Grandfort commented:
> I'm assuming (probably correctly) that it is a matter of soil volume
> and water retention.  I think
> I will need larger pots, which can hold more soil, so the water doesn't
> evaporate as quickly, but then the space factor comes into play.
I would look at some of the soil conditioners they sell at your local 
nursery. Among them, is Perlite. This may be a synthetic or clay 
compound. I'm not sure. Large grains of white, foam like spheres. These 
hold a tremendous amount of moisture for their volume. They soak the 
water up from your watering, but let it out more gradually.

I think this is also the material used in some homemade moisture bands. 
Basically rolled up and sewn bandanas filled with this stuff. They 
start out dry but when you soak them in the ice water of your ice 
chest, they swell up into squishy, jelly-like band covered in the 
bandana material. You then wrap them around your forehead or other part 
and the slow evaporation of the water keeps you cooler.
> Thanks, by the way, to Stefan.... the Flori-etc entry was helpful.
Good. I'm never sure if my file suggestions will be useful or not. This 
file also has some general gardening comments as well as stuff on 
medieval style gardening:
gardening-msg     (17K)  2/29/00    Period and modern gardening 
techniques.

Stefan
--------
THLord Stefan li Rous    Barony of Bryn Gwlad    Kingdom of Ansteorra
    Mark S. Harris           Austin, Texas          
StefanliRous at austin.rr.com
**** See Stefan's Florilegium files at:  http://www.florilegium.org ****