Recently in Containers Category

One of the things I LOVE about gardening and keeps me sane is homegrown tomatoes! Everyone will attest that there is NOTHING like homegrown tomatoes! Nothing! Fresh off the vine and onto your plate, mmmmmm.

I have a couple of containers I've started using for growing vegetables in. They aren't BIG containers so I don't harvest much, but I make the most of what I have for sure! One of the containers is just outside the kitchen window and currently has Scarlet Beans in it.

They are a bush bean variety and so the trellis was unnessessary but you live and learn eh? I planted some pole beans in there, which are growing right now :) Good job too as the bush beans gave me their last harvest I think:

Also in a container out in the side yard off the dining room is this 1/2 wine barrel. I blogged about it before but here are the plants growing in there. Only 1/2 the barrel is planted, bush beans on left, and mesclun on right. I have tomatoes to transplant in the back once they get to a decent transplanting size and I get something to train them up against :)

I love container gardening, so much easier than regular gardening, less watering and less bugs! I just need to get ontop of the succession planting and I'll be set :)

Lol, sorry for the pun. I bet only a few of you realize my name is Di anyway so probably lost on most of you, lol. Anyway here is a pic of my scarlet bean harvest Monday :)

Just 3oz but lots more on the plants and I planted some more at the weekend :) At em with some scrambled tofu Monday night. Definitely Yummy!

I got lots of seeds earlier this year from the dollarstore when they were 9 packets for 99c. Ok I'll be honest I went kinda crazy! lol. Anyway one of the varieties of bean was Royal Burgundy

Silly me didn't read the packet correctly so I bought bamboo poles, some twine and made and elaborate teepee in a container in the front garden for them, only to find out they are BUSH beans! Doh! Clearly states this on the back of the packet, if I had actually read it properly. Thankfully I have some pole beans so the teepee won't go to waste but yikes! Three of the beans planted in the container grew well, and are producing beans :)

They really are a beautiful deep burgundy color! Almost ready for harvesting I think don't you? Will keep you posted on the flavor!

I divide our garden into separate zones front, back, and side yard (x2). Even each of those zones has even further separation down to beds, microclimates and containers. In the side yard (dog run) I have a couple of containers one of which is a 1/2 wine barrel. It was here when we moved into the house back in 2002, well actually we had 2 but one rotted. Anyway last year I planted up some tomatoes, cilantro and other herbs in the barrel, just tossing the seeds in and letting the plants do their thing. This year I want to be more organized. The wine barrel in the side yard housed the tomato plant I overwintered, so I think this area could technically be a year round gardening area. Sheltered from the full southern sun in Summer and protected from the cold/frost in winter. It's a win win area which I really need to think about expanding on. Regular readers will know I follow the square foot gardening system, not 100% but I take on the principles of using every square inch of space to grow my edibles. So I figure why not do the same with containers? My plan is to divide the container into 4 quarters, then plant sq ft style. That will only be a little under 1 square foot per quarter so should work out ok. Pretty much this will be my salad area. It's in the side yard and easily accessible from the kitchen so that should work out great! Now to get out there and get planting! :)

I already posted about my freecycle haul of plant containers in March, and I touched on how gardening doesn't have to break the bank, but I thought I'd introduce another element today: dumpster diving :) Now I'm not saying go routing around in every dumpster, but just keep your eyes peeled! I mentioned I have dogs, and well that means walks, three times a day for our active little beasts, which means I get to see pretty quick whenever anyone throws anything out! Some neighbors up the street had a dumpster and sitting ontop were these beauties! Not sure you can tell but those are 15 gallon and 5 gallon containers. The black ones used to contain avocado trees!

Naturally I relieved them of their burden of throwing these out into the landfill, and the big ones now contain my loquat and peach trees :) Sure I looked funny walking down the street with 5 big containers and 2 dalmatians but the neighbors already think I'm a little crazy so whatever.

Last Fall some new folks moved into one of the colonial houses up the street and naturally they were sorting through the stuff left behind in the garden. These were put on the sidewalk with a free sign. Two long planters. Yep they came home with me too!

At the top of our street I rescued 3 tomato cages and 2 tomato towers from a dumpster (Ok DH had to get the tomato towers they were too far in I couldn't reach). All I am saying is be aware and what others are throwing out, keep a look out for gardening supplies everywhere! You just never know what you will find!!!

Beans glorious beans! Last year I tried them straight in the ground and they got a few sets of leaves then either got eaten or just died. This year hopefully will be better. I'm growing a few different varieties and plan on harvesting beans like I am currently harvesting peas... LOTS!

So far I have started beans in a container with a 6ft bamboo cane teepee. Not all of them have come up yet, probably got a 40% success rate, but I can fill in with more seeds later (note to self: mix the varieties). I definitely see container gardening in my future especially for the difficult crops like beans, melon and cucumber. Critters around here LOVED them and ate the whole freakin' plants! I have something eating my spinach right now too :( Darn critters, wish they'd stick to their plants in the main garden!

I mentioned before about my raised beds with cinderblocks but today I thought I'd post about my raised beds made from wood, the reasons why I opted for raised beds etc, and a step by step progress over the last year! When we moved into the house in 2002 our lot was pretty overgrown as the previous owners had poor health and the garden had all but been abandoned. However I took on the challenge and tackled it bit by bit. We had an old fence that was rotten and falling to pieces, behind which was a slope which was pretty unusable on one side and tiered on the other with telegraph poles.

After taking down the fence and removing LOTS of iris plants (they pop up like weeds here) we could see potential. Pretty much over the course of 2003 - 2005 the garden looked either barren or weed city. We had existing citrus trees (orange and grapefruit) which we neglected. We knew that for ANY of our future garden plans we needed to get rid of the palm tree which was located right in the center of the flattest part of our garden. In October 2005 Bob bought a chainsaw and set to work cutting it down.

Again the next couple of years passed with a few gardening activities (dwarf citrus in containers) and then in 2007 I began to see light at the end of the tunnel. I wanted to grow edibles again as I had in England and so out came the root stump and in went some edible plants.

What I didn't bank on was the crappy soil. We had clay back home but this here was pretty terrible. The plants did poorly and so I looked into alternatives. I was growing in containers which were doing well so I opted for raised beds. Sure the initial expense would be higher but once in they'd last a few years and the harvests would increase. Most importantly it'd be homegrown. The more I learned about industrial farming the more I knew I wanted homegrown organic produce. So we got wood, we got chicken wire and compost/soil and went to work

Soon we had three raised beds in the ground by October 2008, full of soil and ready to plant. I got busy on that one immediately and got my winter crops in which I have been harvesting for months now. As you can see from the grids I've been using the square foot gardening method :)

Now sure there is still LOTS I want to accomplish in the garden both front and back but it's all about baby steps! Since making these beds and getting winter crops in I've put some bark chips around the beds (everything to the right of the hose pipe is mulched). The back looks TONS better, and as you can see the beds are pretty productive, but still lots of plans to put into action!  [ignore the stepladder! That's there as a precaution due to the trellis buckling in the high winds last month!]

I think that's one great thing about the blogging aspect of gardening, seeing the changes each month. The beds sure do look different right now than they did 6 months ago! And compared to the first clearing it looks much better, but like I said still a long way to go!

I post last week my first Peachy Keen photo. This tree was a freebie from Freecycle, one of 4 trees we picked up and one of two survivors.Well I have an important update! I mentioned last week that the tree was flowering, not many just a few blossoms that were beautiful, and I have to post the pic again cos it's soooo pretty!

Well I went out Friday to water the plants, potter around in the garden, make sure the trellis was still standing, you know the usual stuff. Anyway I found this:

Is it? Is THAT the start of a fruit? With my limited knowledge of fruit tree gardening (non citrus) that sure looks like it's a pollenated flower that has formed a fruit!!! I have NO IDEA how old the tree is, like I said it was a freebie, but it's around 2-3' high so I'd estimate around 4-5 years old. It's in a 10 gallon pot, and watered 1-2 times a week. Sheesh now I need to do more research I have no idea how to look after a Peach tree, I figured I'd have another year at least before I needed to know. Guess I do have green fingers :)

I've been a freecycle member for a while now and though most the emails that come through aren't on my watch list I do keep an eye out for gardening items :) Thursday afternoon I spotted an email come through for free 1 gallon and 5 gallon plant containers, naturally I jumped on it, and I was lucky! It turns out the person is literally round the corner! LITERALLY! If it wasn't for houses I'd could walk there in minutes, so I hopped in the car and drove the 1/2 mile round the street to find these:

What a score! Some container gardening in the future this year again! I already have a few big ones, but was looking for more medium sized ones and these are perfect! There are 7 of the 5 gallon size and about 15-20 of the smaller  1 gallon size. Got talking to the lady "Lois" and turns out she is into gardening and is a master gardener! Told me all about the program that runs from Jan - June in Ventura. I must do that next year!!!

Other scores on freecycle have included: gardening books, pots, containers, and fruit trees (yep the peach tree was a freebie!). I've also rescued items from dumpsters including: tomato towers, tomato cages, containers, and BIG plant pots. Just doing my part for the environment!

Oh and ignore the hole in the screen door, that was River thinking that the door was open and busting right through it! We just never bothered replacing it as we figured she'd just do it again! *sigh*