Container gardening planning
Part of the plan is trying to figure out where the sun will be most of the time. Sadly, I don't have a southern view and almost every stinking thing I want to grow wants lots of sun. But my yard is like survivor, you live or you get voted out of the yard. I don't remember to water until I see droopy leaves. I know, bad gardener, bad!Last year's winner was the arugula. I admire a plant I plant from seed and ignore the rest of the season and grows. I think it helped that it was a deep pot, about a foot deep and sat directly on the ground. When I pulled the pot up, the dang thing had sent a root through the plastic pot and into the ground anchoring itself to the spot I left it. It wilted a bit after the removal but sprang back after some watering.
Dill and tomatoes were directly sown into the ground and came up wonderfully. The dill particularly, sowed itself, I expect to see unplanned dill again this year. Cherry tomatoes, the other bite sized tomato, and the Lemon Boy did okay with 4 hours of direct sun leaning on the southern fence. B&I were good sports about it, allowing me to keep the tomatoes growing on our common fence. It would be good to see if I can repeat the same success in a pot in the backyard. B. gave me some hope as his red tomatoes did well last year in his backyard. However, they required daily watering and constant fertilizing. Argh, I don't have the patience and my goal is to grow organicly, so easy on the fertilizing. I hope with deeper pots being a foot and a half deep at the least, they will hold water better, and I may dig part of a soaker hose in the pot to deal with the water issue. Another idea is just to break down and buy an irrigation system or punch a bunch a holes in a garden hose.
The tomatoes and the squash have first dibs on the deep pots as tomatoes need to be in a 15-30 gallon pot. Squash roots need about 10 inches. Most other plants I'm growing in pots only need 5-8 inches of room.
This morning, I noticed the article in today's Post about starting plants from seed. Apparently I'm doing everything wrong. No heating mat, growing things in peat pots, no fan, and the growing lamp is now just for the picky citrus sapling. I'll take my chances and see what develops.
posted by Mari @ 3.3.05
3 Comments:
For what it's worth, join the dark side. Give up on seeds as much as possible & just wait to buy seedlings. I grow hot peppers & tomatoes each year, & various other things year to year. The pre-started stuff always does better, & is soooo much easier to deal with.
I found a neat website last week that included some potentially good ideas for watering container plants - including the pop irrigation system. Rather good common sense ideas.
http://www.yougrowgirl.com/garden/dripsystem.php
Sophiagrrl, thanks for the link. Of course I'd have to modify the design to prevent mosquitoes from eating me alive (as they do every year).
Also I'm gonna stick with my seedlings till they plop over dead from the damp. I don't think I want to take any chances on NOT finding any Lemon Boy tomato plants. The singular Lemon Boy I had last year kept me in tomatoes almost weekly.
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