Gardening Vegetables By Verticulture System

Agriculture is one of many aspect of life that will never be separated from human being. As long as people still need food, agriculture will always exist. Awareness the importance of healthy life make the people become more selective in choosing food. The needed of healthy food can be seen from the demand of fresh and organic food that higher on society. The most potential commodity to fulfill the needed of organic and fresh food  are vegetables.Besides the cheapness and the easy of its cultivation, vegetables also requires short period to be harvested.

To the scale of the families needed, yard around the house can be used to growth the fresh vegetables. However, the narrow  yard is one of problem to grow vegetables. The problem be bigger in the big cities. Not only the narrow yard, the cemented land make the growing vegetables be hard. To overcome the limited and the cemented land, growing vegetables can be down by verticulture system. Verticulture taken from English term (vertical and culture) are cultivating agriculture system that placed vertically or tiered. A limited land can be produce same as a normal land when the verticulture is used.

Verticulture is a system of agricultural cultivation where the planting area arranged vertically or terraced to allow the efficiency of limited land. A limited land can be produce same as a normal land when the verticulture is used. In a general or conventional agriculture, one square meter can only be planted with five trees. By using this method, we can grow more than five trees.

Plant cultivation by verticulture system are easy and cheap to be done. Inexpensive because the material that used on verticulture system usually are unused goods. Verticulture is easy because basically, this system is same as with conventional farming. Generally, there are 4 things that must be done to farming vegetables on verticulture system. They are manufacture of container planting, growing media procurement, planting crops, and plant maintenance on verticulture.

1.      Manufacture Container Planting

The first is prepare the material which will be used as container planting on verticulture system. Bamboo or pipes can be used to be container planting. Diameter of bamboo or pipes that can be used as container are 10-20 cm. Then, the choosen material are cut along 120 cm. Actually, the bamboo or pipes could be longer or shorter than 120 cm. if it is longer, it will be very difficult to watering and harvesting, while if it is shorter, it can reduces the vegetables yield were cultivated.

Furthermore, the planting hole are made on the wall of bamboo or pipes. Drill, hammer, chisel, or heating can be used to make the planting holes. The holes are made randomly on the four side of bamboo or pipes walls. On the two side faced , make three holes each other. And the other two side, make two holes each other. So there are ten holes on container planting as a whole. Every holes have diameter 1.5 cm, while the distance between the holes are 30 cm.

Then, the container planting that has been given planting holes is inserted into the soil until 20 cm on depth. If there is no soil, container planting can be cemented or put on another container until the container planting can stand up straightly.

2.      Procurement of Growing Media

Growing media is the media that support the growth of plant roots. From this planting media, the vegetables absorb the water and nutrient through their roots to the al segment of vegetables. Good growing media is media that made from the mixture of soils, compost, and chaff. Ratio between soils, compost, and chaff are 1:1:1. Then, the three materials are mixing until evenly done. Soils have ability to bind nutrients and the nutrient can be absorbed by roots by cation exchange principle. Chaff can hold the water in the soils, while the compost ensuring availability of essentials material that can be broken down into nutrients than can be used by plant directly.

Growing media fulfill into container planting. To ensure there no empty space, small bamboo or wood can be pushed to the soil until down to the bottom of container.

3.      Planting Crop

There are two kind of planting crops on verticulture system. First, the seed planted directly in the planting holes. Second, the seed first planted in other media, after that, the seed is moved into planting holes. Seed that can directly planted such as kale, spinach, baby capri, etc. Seed should be sown first such as chili, tomatoes, peppers, lettuce, etc.

Seedbed can be done in any container that can fulfilled by growing media and have holes on the bottom so it can drain excess water. Growing media for seeding usually made from mixed sand with organic matter such as compost. Two-three weeks, the seeds will germinated and have 3-4 leaves. Ideally, the seeds that have 4-5 leaves have been ready to move. But, it is not directly moved to container planting. The 4-5 leaves seeds must be moved to polybag first. Only after more than one month the seed can be moved to container planting. On this age, the seeds have better adaptation to be grown on verticulture system. Either directly planting or seedbed first, ideally one planting hole just have one seed.

4.      Plant Maintenance on Verticulture.

Generally, the treatment of verticulture system is same as in the conventional cultivation system. They are includes watering, fertilizing, and pest control.

Watering can be done with drip irrigation or directly irrigation system. Usually, the water is poured directly on the top of container planting. that must be considered is not allowed until the excess water. If the excess water, it will lost some growing media from the container planting. watering is only done to make the growing media keep wet. Watering can also done by spray water directly to the plant. This method take a longer time because it have to spray the plants one by one.

Fertilizing, vegetables need much more nitrogen fertilizer. Fertilizer is given once every 5-7 days with increasing doses according to the phase of plant growth. . For inorganic fertilizer should be poured into the planting medium, not the plants. This is to prevent the contamination of chemistry material on the plant which can be consumed directly. Organic fertilizer can be done directly to the plant. Organic fertilizer usually in liquid form so it can done by spraying it.

Pest control is done by observing plants regularly. .Because of the small scale, pest control is done mechanically, such as directly off pests by hand or pickup instrument. Weeds are very rare in vertikultur system because there is no place for weeds to grow.

Vertikultur is a method of cultivation that the principle is efficiency use of land. Besides cheap and easy to be done, gardening vegetables by verticulture system also have several benefits and advantages. The benefit obtained is able to provide the family needed on vegetables and also make the atmosphere around the house to be more fresh. Gardening that often performed is believed as alternative activities that can reduce stress. The advantages offered verticultur compared conventional system is the efficiency of land use.