talk all about container gardening

Plant varieties I chose  one larger picture of the tags from what I picked.

Passed by a trading post, or small country store, if you will, on 601, the other day. Caroline said that if I took a tomato plant home, and grew it on my porch, I would have tomatoes all season.  We were out 20100426

Pointed out two of the large potted tomato plants, about two feet high, already had tomatoes on them. Price was around four dollars each, per plant, so I bought them.

Next day I bought two five-gallon-orange-colored-paint-buckets for about $2.34 each, and a good grade of pointing soil, normal bag, two each, one normal and one with fertilizer and peat moss and manure already composted in it. Price was just under twenty dollars, all told, excluding the plants.

And abundance of dirt

Turned out to be about twice as much soil as I needed for the two pots. After Caroline came over again  we went back to buy two more pots, and then back to the trading post for some more plants, lettuce, pepper plants, and onion sets.

Now, you can’t buy just one plant, they come in sets of three to four. One pot had four green pepper plants put in it, and the other the four lettuce plants. Two each has the tomato plant in it. Spring onions are placed in between the rows, as it were. You wind up placing four plants like the four directions of the compass, and towards the outside of the pots.

That sort of filled up the end of my little porch, the four pots. Next morning got the idea to cut holes in the top of the workbench-on-two-saw-horses that sits on my front porch. I had built both the saw horses and the work bench table. Table top has outside and inside frame like a wall, and is over-covered with 3/8 plywood. Trick was to keep the pots places such that they would miss the underlying sawhorses.

That being done I went back and bought four more pots, or buckets, and potting soil. Very important step has been left out of this discussion. Holes were drilled, about one-quarter inch in diameter, and about one inch up from the bottom, and anywhere from one-to-two inches apart, all the way around the outside base, of each orange bucket, or pot.

People often use gravel for the base layer, I used some washed play sand for mine, up to the level of the holes.

(later note- my sand is washing out the little holes.  My sister, Gale, said, "Next time, sand will work better if you put newspaper down first.   The newspaper winds up fertilizing the soil, and keeps it from washing out of the pot.   kudos, good idea.)

After that I got broccoli, crook neck yellow squash, dusky variety egg plant, and a bush cucumber  plant. Wound up with four each, again, and three of the egg plant. Each set was about one dollar.

Again, you can not buy just one plant, so I placed all of each variety in each pot, and interspersed with the rest of the onions. Should prove interesting. Don’t know if all this will be supported by the soil in the pots, or how they will grow together.

Howard the duck.

Found a molded concrete duck at the seed store, and bought it for seven dollars, and now it sits on the table with the four orange plant buckets, and it is all very peaceful. Added a stand my mother owned, metal with a concrete stone above, with a stained glass butterfly inlaid. Added my crown-of-thorns ( also a family heirloom,) to the mix, and the porch is very peaceful.

Was a little worried about the squash plants and the egg plants, being too large and their growth habits. Either by divine inspiration or luck, I picked the first variety on several lists of egg plant for containers, and found crook neck squash on several lists. Seems the experts recommend them for containers.

Only thing was that the internet site said that one squash plant would feed a family of four, and I have four plants, and live alone. That is, four plants to each pot. Don’t know if all this will grow together, and if I will be buried in tomatoes, peppers, onions, squash, egg plant, broccoli, and cucumbers when the crops come in.

For now plan to leave them all in, and sit out front and enjoy my little garden with Howard, the duck. She has not seen it yet, but I took one of the circles of plywood that I cut out of the top, and placed Howard on it, and wrote, "Carolines’ Garden" in paint.  She has not seen it yet.

Found out in reading that the broccoli plants are better grown in the cool season, or in a shaded corner of the garden, so we will see.

Shots for first web page on April 28, 2010.

Paul Phillips

paulscustomcards@hotmail.com

http://www.paulscustomcards.com

Container Garden 002   one month into the project, one month after this page