Vegepod Gardens
Productive Micro Gardening for Everyone
Vegepod, a big hit from Down Under is now available in North America. At Grozine.com, we’ve been seeing more and more everyday people from across the globe posting pictures of beautiful looking vegetable gardens thriving in what is called a Vegepod.
What is a Vegepod, you ask?
We’d describe the Vegepod as a covered, self watering, raised bed growing system, ideal for a very wide range of veggies, flowers and herbs. Don’t be fooled, you can fit a lot more than you think into one of these systems as we found out first hand on receiving a Size Large Vegepod and stand. The bed itself is deep enough for root crops like carrots and the breathable covering stands around a couple feet above the soil surface level.
[quote]Again, it’s really amazing to see the size and sturdiness of the finished Vegepod considering it all arrived via Post Service in two boxes[/quote]
This Vegepod graphic is really worth a thousand words, note the cyclic concept here–works very much like Mother Nature’s garden–except you can set up a Vegepod just about anywhere the sunshines while saying goodbye to things like back aches, rodents, slugs, frost damage, messes and laborious watering. If you have pets like dogs and cats, this is a great way to keep them and some of their less favorable activities out of your food garden.
ABOVE: Note the cyclic nature of how the Vegepod works–very low maintenance and user friendly
It was really quite amazing to us how compact the Vegepod was shipped relative to the finished garden size. Our Size Large Vegepod, assembled, is roughly 3.3 Feet by 6.6 feet and stand about waist high from the ground. After assembly, it is sturdy enough to support 440 Litres of soil—that’s a LOT of weight!
The two cartons arrived via Post, and fit easy enough into the trunk of a regular North American sedan. Note that there are several sizes available, as follows (click for details):
Vegepod Assembly
Like most people, when we see a bunch of parts and don’t know how the finished product is supposed to look it can feel a little overwhelming at first. However, following the written instructions supplied in the box was a snap–it required no additional tools; everything was supplied. There are also instructional videos on youtube, etc if you are more inclined to learn that way.
Again, it’s really amazing to see the size and sturdiness of the finished Vegepod considering it all arrived via Post Service in two boxes. The base support is nicely powder coated steel, so it looks like it will last the test of time outdoors and doesn’t feel at all unstable, even when loaded with 440 liters of moist growing media. This unit was filled with professional grade soilless mix (peat based with added perlite, plus additional coco coir). We are opting to use organic nutrients in our Vegepod, which makes it easier to reuse the same growing media from crop to crop and season to season–microbes will do a fair bit in managing fertility levels, ie self regulating once healthy microbial activity is established and a balance of healthy inputs are added.
For the Size Large Vegpod, it’s basically like assembling two Medium sized systems or four Small sized systems. Even with it being our first build, it was an easy few hours from start to finish and ready to plant. Truth be told, the hardest job was lugging and loading all that growing media–however, once accomplished, it’s not a task we expect to be needing to repeat with healthy soil management.
Further down the road we will have enough experience and information to offer a solid review of the Vegepod (size Large), although for now, we can say we are impressed and excited to see how it grows. At this time we have planted Scallions, Carrots, Broccoli, Red Cabbage, Snap Peas, Okra, Squash and Pole Beans. Our transplants aren’t huge, and it’s still a little cooler out. This should prove to be as good a test as any to see how well the Vegpod contends with the North American growing season–especially for those of us looking to extend the growing season for our favorite pastime.
Want to Learn More about Growing your own Garden Transplants? Click HERE.
For now, we’ll leave you with our assembly and early planting photos. Please follow us on Instagram for regular updates between articles here at Grozine.com
