Now that the year is over, I'm evaluating my first veggie-growing trials from last summer. They were all in planters, and our weather was very cool. I used several different types of containers, and employed the
"lasagna" technique of soil building with two of them The first lasagna planter is this double wash tub. In a previous life, it was placed on the ground, with metal screen over the drain holes. Unfortunately I did a poor job of leveling it, and the water drained back away from the holes and it became swampy. When I began to use it here, I discovered the drain screens clogged with roots (that didn't help!) So this time, I'm using cloth strips from my old deck bunting to cover the drain holes.
The first layer is coarse material from my manure pile, which has been getting rained on for several months...
...and over each layer I sprinkled a "nutrient mix". Using the book
"Lasagna Gardening for Small Spaces" as a guide....
...my mix consisted of equal parts bone meal, greensand, and kelp meal. The book suggested equal parts blood meal, rock phosphate and greensand, but I used what I had on hand.
The rest of the layers were: coarse sand, peat moss, well-composted manure, and the top layer was a soil blend (composted manure, old soil from last year's hanging pots, peat moss, nutrient mix and Hyponex "potting soil", a.k.a. MUD). Now for the planting, which took place fairly late in the season on July 1st. These are all plants I started indoors from seed, as you can see they are plenty healthy!
I planted the tomatoes the way my mom taught me-lying down, lower branches pinched off with the leafy top branches above ground.
There! In one tub: 'Abe Lincoln' tomato, 'Green Zebra' tomato, purple basil, Greek oregano, 'Boy Oh Boy' tomato. In the other tub: 'Amish Paste' tomato (two), 'Red Rubin' basil (two), and 'Sun Pride' tomato. Just one more detail...
....top layer of wood chips to help retain moisture. The plants look as excited as me...
...even the teensy basil!
Then just two days later-
varmints! Bummer! Luckily none of the plants were uprooted or damaged, so I just filled in and replaced the mulch.
By August 23rd my plants have come a long way....
....but by September 17th the only ripe tomatoes are the 'Green Zebras'. I see an 'Amish Paste' getting close....
....but the rest of the fruits on 'Sun Pride' and 'Boy Oh Boy' are
very green and funky-looking. The cool weather made harvesting ripe tomatoes very challenging...
....and the hungry creatures around my yard didn't help! They were beating me to the ripe stuff, and settling for green tomatoes as well.
Overall I have to admit that this planter was a success, and the herbs that grew alongside the tomatoes were harvested several times. (Some of the items in this dish are from other containers.) I originally decided to grow veggies as a fun experiment, but now I'm hooked!
As I plan for next year, my focus/obsession is with speed. I'm searching high and low for the fastest maturing cultivars, because now that I'm an official "farmer" I simply must be as successful as possible! Another container review will be coming soon.....