No Room for a Garden? - Try This Table-Top Idea

I found this article in Sunset Magazine.  Even though we have space for a garden, I think this would be a fun idea for planting all of our salad greens on the deck. That way we can just go out in the evening and "cut our dinner!!"  How fresh can you be?!?!?!


Image from Sunset Magazine

Step 1 – Choose Your Veggies (Note: Use this guide to grow herbs, strawberries and flowers in your container garden too.)

What do you want to grow in your container veggie garden? The only rule is to choose vegetables that you actually like to eat – it’s one of the benefits of being a grown-up. There are many varieties of vegetables that have been developed especially for container gardening. Look for descriptive words like “bush,” “compact” or “dwarf” when buying vegetable seeds or transplants (small plants ready to put directly into the garden). It’s fun to start seeds indoors yourself (or in a mini greenhouse) about 8 weeks before it is expected to be warm enough to transplant them outside into your containers.
 

Tip: Plan to plant an extra pot or two of veggies to share with your friends.

Step 2 – Choose Your Veggie Planters

Gardening in containers is easy (you don’t need a PhD from a horticulture university to be successful – all you need is a little basic knowledge) but one of the most important factors in your gardening success is choosing appropriate garden planters. Nearly all vegetables and herbs will do well in a 5-gallon pot (12″ diameter and 12″ depth) but plants with shallow roots, like salad greens, will grow well in 6-8 inches of depth.

Use light colored pots for veggies that prefer cool temperatures (like lettuce and cabbage) and dark colored planters for heat loving plants (like tomatoes). For tall growing plants, choose pots made of heavy material like terracotta or add a layer of clean sand to the bottom of the planter for added weight and planter support.

Choose colors and styles of planters that compliment your house and yard. There is a large selection of beautiful garden planters available to suit any taste and budget. Consider self-watering garden planters for extra convenience and a sure water supply for thirsty plants on hot summer days. Some plants will do best if supported by a trellis or stake attached to the garden planter.

Tip: Share the fun and help a friend get started in veggie gardening.

Step 3 – Add Soil to Your Containers

The soil for vegetables that are grown in containers must be lightweight, loose, and hold moisture well. Regular soil is too heavy, compacts easily and should never be used in planters. It is important to choose a “soil-less” soil mix developed specifically for gardening in containers. These soils are various mixtures of vermiculite, perlite, peat moss and other nutrients.

The soil can be reused the following year by adding special soil boosters that replenish lost nutrients that vegetables require. Another benefit of using lightweight soil is that your planters will be easy to move around – one of the main advantages of container gardening is its portability.

Now for the fun part. The next step in our container gardening guide is…

 Step 4 – Plant Your Veggie Garden

Follow the directions on the seed package to determine the best time for planting in your area based on your gardening hardiness zone. Use a zone finder tool to determine your zone by zip code and be sure to make a note of your zone number.

Many gardeners will sow seeds directly into garden planters for quick growing veggies like greens, but purchase transplants for longer maturing vegetables like tomatoes. After planting your seeds, spray soil lightly with a mister and cover pot with plastic wrap to retain moisture and warmth. Keep the soil moist at all times. When the seeds sprout, remove the plastic cover but continue to water very gently – remember they are baby veggies and need loving care.

Other information about the plant’s requirements (spacing, etc..) can be found on the seed package. Try to give each plant the conditions that they prefer. This is easy to do with container gardening – you control all of the environmental factors (soil, sun, water etc…).

Tip: Remember to add your favorite herbs, small fruits (like strawberries) and flowers (nasturtiums and dwarf marigolds are nice) to your veggie planters.

Bonus tip: Plant salad greens around the base of your tomato plant. By the time the tomato plant in the center needs the space you will have harvested the greens.

Step 5 – Fertilize and Water Veggies

Your veggies need to be watered daily and fertilized on a regular basis. Fertilizer is the key to abundant produce and healthy plants. Fertilizer replenishes the nutrients that plants need and that are washed away every time you water your containers. For best results look for complete organic fertilizers that are recommended especially for container gardening and fertilize according to the package directions.

Avoid using liquid fish emulsion fertilizer – cats and raccoons love the smell. (A special note about herbs: Herbs need less fertilizer than vegetables. So after the initial planting, you will not need to add fertilizer again.)

Watering must be done daily and more often on extremely hot summer days when the planter soil is likely to dry out quickly. Be sure you have free flowing drainage holes in your garden planter. Elevate veggie planters on bricks or wood to allow drainage and to protect surfaces. Consider watering aids and time-savers like self-watering planters, water-holding crystals that are added to the soil mix, and drip-irrigation systems designed especially for gardening in containers.

Tip: Put a layer of peat moss on top of the soil in each planter to help retain moisture.

Step 6 – Give Your Veggies Sunshine

Most vegetables require 6 hours of sunlight daily. Leafy vegetables like lettuce will do fine with somewhat less light. If necessary, putting planters on casters makes it easy to move your plants from areas of limited light to more sunny areas. Group pots of heat-loving veggies together in the warmest spot on your patio and cluster vegetables that prefer cooler temperatures in areas that are sheltered from the hot afternoon sun.

Garden design is a great opportunity to create a garden that is productive, creates useful extensions of your living space and is pleasing to look at. A potting bench can even be used as an outdoor buffet for family dining on the patio or deck.

Tip: Get your kids involved in gardening. Even kids that don’t like veggies will eat the baby carrots they grew themselves.

Step 7 – A Daily Gardening Schedule

Your new vegetable garden is very low maintenance requiring few supplies or tools, but you will need to water daily, fertilize regularly and be sure to harvest your veggies and berries as they ripen (the fruit of your labor). Herbs can be snipped and used as needed, either fresh or dried.

Most important of all, is to enjoy the time you spend in your garden – getting your hands in the soil and working with nature is relaxing and also provides a satisfying sense of accomplishment.

Tip: An attractive planter of salad greens or herbs makes a healthy and thoughtful gift.

It’s that easy. You’ll soon discover that there is nothing like the taste of fresh, just-picked vegetables from your own thriving container garden.

Raised Bed Gardens - Tips & Tricks

Here is a great article by Doreen G. Howard. Tom made our raised beds from boards we had left over from construction, so we saved on the cost of the boards, but building these raised bed gardens would be worth any price because we have so much clay in our soil that we could be making pots! By putting "good" soil on top of the clay gives our plants a fighting chance for survival.

 

Growing your own produce can save you some money too.  I calculated that just by growing our own lettuce we are saving over $300/year.

 

Doreen's article:

Every time I open a plant catalog or see a television commercial for sale priced $99 raised bed gardening kits, I cringe! I've never spent more than $8 to build a four-by-four-foot bed or $35 to build a 20-foot-long one.

My husband builds mine. He buys two 1 by 8-inch cedar boards, which don't rot with age. They come in 8-foot lengths, which is perfect for 4 by 4-foot beds. Cut each plank in half, so that it is 4-feet long. Or have the store make the cuts. Many places will do it for free.
Husband also buys a 3-foot length of a 1 by 1-inch pine stake; he cuts it into four pieces and uses them to nail the cedar boards to at corners for bracing. That's all! Each box costs less than $10 to make.


Grouping together several raised beds makes a substantial vegetable garden that is easy to maintain, with no weeding and crops that mature fast

I place the boxes on cleared ground. Turf should be cut and rolled up, or vegetation killer can be used. Strong white vinegar applied to grass in sunlight will kill the turf in hours. After I situate the boxes (four or five grouped together makes a good sized garden), I put down three layers of newspaper to suppress errant weed or grass seeds that might sprout. Paper degrades fully within weeks and feeds the soil.

Another fast, cheap method of building raised beds is to use concrete construction blocks. They have a big bonus. Their holes can be filled with soil mix and planted with herbs or strawberries.
The extra gathered heat from concrete is perfect for Mediterranean-type herbs such as rosemary and lavender. Strawberry plants grow huge and fruit fast in the holes. Each block is 16 inches long by 8 inches high and costs about $1.30 each at big box stores. Beds of 13 feet or longer by 4 feet wide are cheaper to build using blocks than with cedar boards.


Cement construction blocks average about $1.30 apiece across the country.

You will be planting seeds and transplants close, because the beds are smaller and the soil is richer. But, plants grown close together in raised beds mature faster, because they compete for nutrients and sunlight. Each plant senses the distance of others and adjusts its metabolism to compete. Several university studies have proven this competition syndrome by identifying how plants perceive others nearby using the green light spectrum.


This 4-by-4-foot bed is crowded with productive peppers, cucumbers, a tomato plant and insect-repelling flowers that are edible.

Raised Bed Soil MixThe more organic matter there is in soil, the better. Soil microbes are fed, oxygen and water
readily reach roots and plants thrive. Here’s the recipe I’ve developed in the last decade that
works best for my garden.

For one 4-by-4-foot raised bed. (Multiply amounts to fill larger beds.)
2 bags (2-cubic-feet each) top soil
1 pail (3-cubic-feet) peat moss
1 bag (2 to 3-cubic feet) compost or composted cow manure
2-inch layer of shredded leaves or grass clipping.

If you use grass, make sure the clippings are not from a lawn that has been sprayed with herbicides or been fertilized with a food that contains granular herbicides to kill weeds. Both persist and will kill plants beds up to three years after the initial application.

Mix all materials with a hoe or cultivator and water well. Be sure to mulch well with organic Matter such as more leaves or clippings or straw.

The Couch Potato's Guide to Growing Spuds




Image from sweetlifegarden.com

 

I am so excited.  We are buying our potato “seeds” this weekend and a-planting-we-will-go!!  We have decided on German Butterball, Yukon Gold, Sangre (red potato), Russian Banana (fingerling) and Georgia Jet (sweet potato).

Potatoes are about the easiest crops to grow. You can even grow them in a bag of potting soil, without really dirtying your hands. To do that, cut a few drainage holes at the bottom of a bag of potting soil, then stand the bag someplace sunny. Bury two "seed potatoes"  about 4 inches deep, and wait about 3 months for them to grow. When flowers start to appear, tip the bag over and dig out the potatoes. To keep the harvest going long into the fall, plant a new set of seed potatoes every few weeks.

Here is a great article from Organic Gardening Magazine on other ways to plant those spuds!!

Hilled Rows

Dig straight, shallow trenches, 2 to 3 feet apart, in prepared soil. Plant seed potatoes 12 inches apart and cover with about 3 inches of soil. When the shoots reach 10 to 12 inches tall, use a hoe or shovel to scoop soil from between rows and mound it against the plants, burying the stems halfway. Repeat as needed through the growing season to keep the tubers covered.

Pros: No containers to buy or build; no soil to transport. This is a simple, inexpensive, and proven method that farmers have used for millennia. Practical for large-scale plantings.

Cons: Yield may be limited by the quality of the soil. In places where the soil is badly compacted or low in organic matter, one of the aboveground techniques might work better.

Straw Mulch

Place seed potatoes on the surface of prepared soil, following the spacing specified for hilled rows, and cover them with 3 to 4 inches of loose, seed-free straw. Mound more straw around the stems as they grow, eventually creating a layer a foot or more in depth.

Pros: The thick mulch conserves soil moisture and smothers weeds. Harvest is effortless with no digging. This method is suggested as a way to thwart Colorado potato beetle.

Cons: Yield in the test plot was slightly less than in the hilled row. Field mice have been known to use the cover of straw to consume the crop.

Raised Bed

Loosen the soil in the bottom of a half-filled raised bed. Space seed potatoes about 12 inches apart in all directions and bury them 3 inches deep. As the potatoes grow, add more soil until the bed is filled. If possible, simplify harvest by removing the sides.

Pros: This method yielded the largest harvest in my trials, and the potatoes were uniformly large. Raised beds are a good choice where the garden soil is heavy and poorly drained.

Cons: The soil to fill the bed has to come from somewhere—and it takes a lot.

Grow Bag

Commercial growing bags are constructed of heavy, dense polypropylene. Put a few inches of a soil-compost mixture in the bottom of a bag, then plant 3 or 4 seed potato pieces and cover with 3 inches of soil. Continue adding soil as the plants grow until the bag is filled. To harvest, turn the bag on its side and dump out the contents.

Pros: Grow Bags can be placed on patios or driveways or used where garden soil is of inferior quality. The bags should last for several growing seasons. Their dark color captured solar heat to speed early growth. Harvest was simple, and the yield was impressive, considering the small space each bag occupies.

Cons: This is a pricy technique. The brand of bag I used costs $12.95.

Garbage Bag

Plant a large plastic garbage bag following the instruction for a Grow Bag, punching a few holes through the plastic for drainage. Roll the top edge of the bag to help it stay upright; otherwise the bag is prone to sag and spill soil. To harvest, rip the bag and dump out the contents.

Pros: Like the Grow Bags, a garbage bag can be employed where in-ground growing is not an option. Black bags capture solar heat to speed early growth.

Cons: Aesthetically, this is the least appealing choice. Yield was meager, perhaps because the thin plastic allowed the soil to heat up too much, limiting tuber formation.

Wood Box

Following instructions found online at Irish Eyes Garden Seeds Website, build a bottomless square box (I used lumber from discarded pallets). Plant the same as for a raised bed. The box is designed so additional slats can be screwed to the sides as the plants grow and soil is added. In theory, a bottom slat can be temporarily removed to facilitate the harvest of new potatoes. For the final harvest, tip the box and dump out its contents.

Pros: This is another raised strategy for growing potatoes where the garden soil is of poor quality. Yield was similar in quantity to that of a raised bed.

Cons: A lot of time and effort went into the construction of the box. I felt the results did not justify the effort.

Wire Cylinder

Using hardware cloth with ¼-inch mesh, fashion a cylinder about 18 inches in diameter and 24 inches tall. Put several inches of soil in the bottom, then plant 3 or 4 seed potatoes and cover them with 3 inches of soil. Continue to add soil as the potatoes grow. To harvest, lift the cylinder and pull the soil back to expose the tubers.

Pros: In a climate with incessant spring rains, the wire mesh would provide excellent drainage and prevent the soil from becoming waterlogged. This is another raised technique to consider where garden soil is poor.

Cons: I harvested a limited number of undersized tubers from the cylinders—a dismal showing, probably because the soil-compost mixture I used dried out so quickly that the plants lacked adequate moisture.

My Strawberry (Gutter) Fields Forever

Here is a picture I found of a strawberry garden that has actually been planted in GUTTERS!  (No ... not the ones attached to the house!!)

We found some great vinyl gutters at Home Depot this weekend. Check out that price -- only $5.23 for a 10 foot length of gutter. The gutters come in brown or white. We opted for the brown ones.  I really like this gutter because the edges are rounded and finished off so no cut fingers! (Which is always an advantage as far as I am concerned!) Also, the "pocket" is deep enough to accommodate the potting soil.

Our strawberries are all ready to go ... so guess what we are going to be doing NEXT weekend!!

How to Grow Container Carrots -- Video

Here is a great video about how to grow carrots in containers.  Check out his garden in the background ... he grows a LOT of things in containers ... I love that idea!!

To read his whole article, go to Vegetable Garden Guide