how's the yield coming along?
I've been eating fresh onions and onion tops for weeks now. They're lovely.
I have green peppers but I realized I have no IDEA when they're going to be ready. I just stare at them curiously, wondering "is now the right time? Should I wait?"
I have loads and loads of green tomatoes (cherry and early girls), and they're just barely starting to blush with ripening. I'm hoping for even more progress as the sun shines this weekend.
i've tried some container gardening previously,with poor results.
(our dogs like to 'mark' the containers, and my rooftop container got attacked by pigeons... erg)
Ahh, we don't have a male dog, and I keep these up on our deck, so no problems with birds or other critters at all.
so what all do you have in those containers, and what are the black hose looking things coming out of them?
The containers use potting soil. There's a sort of a "grate" thing in the bottom that makes a water reservoir (keeping the soil out). The black hose goes to the reservoir, so I water them through that. You avoid over watering by having an overflow hole poked about two inches up from the bottom of the container. So you just pour water through the black hose until it starts coming out of the hole. Then you stop. This reservoir ensures that the plants have plenty of water without being over-watered.
Also, at the time of planting, you put a sort of ring or stripe of fertilizer (or compost) around the seedlings/starts. This helps them flourish. In the fall, you pull out whatever is left of the plants, and scoop out the ring of compost/whatever, drain out whatever water is left, and use one of the lids you got with the container to cover it up. I tuck them away under the awning of my deck through the winter. You can get about four years worth of use out of a container before you have to empty it and refill with fresh potting soil. Come planting time, you just top off the soil, plant the seedlings, spread around the compost/whatever, and then put some black vinyl sheeting (with slits) over it to keep down weeds and reduce evaporation. I only have to water these a few times a week.
This is WAY better for me than any other sort of garden. I have a massively black thumb, and that I've managed to get produce to not just survive but flourish is quite the accomplishment for me.
