Container Gardening

[Joanne]

Yes, she was. It was breathtaking.

Hey-congratulations...you and I won the contest yesterday!

[amandajane]

Good one, congrats to you too :0)

[amandajane]

So far so good! I have started container gardening and I can immediately see it's benefits. It's easier to plant and care for, weed etc and easy to locate in the optimum growing spot.

I've planted fruit, vegetables and herbs:

Basil
Broccoli
Butter Beans
Carrots
Capsicum
Coriander
Lettuce
Marjoram
Mint
Oregano
Rosemary
Silverbeet
Spinach
Tamarillo
Thyme
Tomato

I got some pots from a garage sale and some from The Warehouse which is very well priced compared to garden centers. I had some equipment I needed. I got some cuttings from a friend and brought some seedlings from Mitre 10.

I'm going to advertise on freecycle for vegetable and herb seedlings and pots, that will keep the cost right down.

All in all it totalled approx $100 and I think the results will be well worth it. We shall see! Here's a few photographs.

Capsicum



Coriander

[jdp]

I grow some veggies and herbs in containers. Very successful outside on my porch but not so much in the house (most of the herbs do ok inside).

I started by figuring out what veggies we eat the most then researching online coop extensions and things for how to grow them best then looked for resources to containerize them. It wasn't hard. Just either use as small a container as possible for the "crop" you want to grow or be very certain of situating it. I had to have some strong friends come move a tub for me because I was wrong lol.

And yes, if you are trying to be frugal, get creative on the definition of "container". Try requesting items to reuse on freecycle or try garage/yard sales at days end to get "steals".

[purplefdu]

We have a raised garden at the house. Or at least it was until the boards rotted through, so now its kind of a kind-of-raised-bed. We have done corn, cucumbers, radishes, carrots, beans, peas, broccoli, cauliflower, yellow squash, zuccini, pumpkins, watermelon, tomatoes, and gourds the past three years. Next year we will only be doing one variety of corn instead of three. I normally do heirloom tomatoes because they are so beautiful and yummy.

Image hosting, free photo sharing & video sharing at Photobucket

I have a friend down the road who did a garden in her front flower bed last year though and we ended up using buckets/pots for the edges. Lots of things can be grown in containers easily. I have heard wonderful things about the upside down pot for tomoatoes. We don't have anywhere covered to put one up (since the landlords kid moved in downstairs) but the greenhouse we go to uses a couple and they work great.

[kav122]

Cucumbers spread ferociously. I don't know how they would do in containers, but in the regular soil they can take over a large area quickly. Tomatos would be easy to grow in containers, and so would bell peppers. I would stick with no root veggies (no potatoes, carrots, turnips--anything that is a root), although I have never grown a container garden, but I just don't think they would do well, unless you had a really big container, or only wanted a couple of those veggies. Also herbs are very easy to grow, and so are most beans.

[Gootsy]

I've thought about doing something like this for a while now. Namely for lettuce, and tomatos. But Broccoli, the herbs, and spinach, definitely sounds appealing.

There's a blog online which is tracking his/her progress once a month(just started this month) on this veggie garden they're making. He's going to calculate how much he saves throughout the year by doing this. Keeping track of the cost the garden (from seeding to maintaining), and track how much the same veggies cost in the grocery store.

I'll look for the blog that has it and post the link online later (unless someone knows it and can do it now).

[amandajane]

jdp - I hadn't thought of putting herbs indoors. I'll do that during winter I think. Although it doesn't get very cold here in NZ there are probably on average a couple of frosts per year.

I need to get inventive for large pots. I got a heap from freecycle this week but no really decent size ones. I might try planting in buckets with holes punched in them, they would be about a dollar each where as plant pots that size are $4 - 5.

purplefdu - that slide show is amazing, such healthy looking veggies. Do you have problems with pests and if so how do you deal with it?

kav122 - I've planted some dwarf carrots, they are round rather than long so I'm hoping they will do ok. I've also planted some dwarf beans and I'm looking forward to them growing as I planted from seed last week. I enjoy cucumber, shame it spreads so much. My nan used to plant them in a pot, even though she couldn't stand the taste, lol.

Gootsy - I'd enjoy reading that blog if you can find the link, it sounds really interesting.

I planted some more veggies today, I think I'd better stop, lol, maybe I'm going a bit overboard, I have over 40 pots now. I can't wait to taste the outcome :0)

[purplefdu]

They've got nice bush style cucumbers, and since they are a vine you can actually trellice them if you want to do them in a container. They come out nice and even in color and shape because the are hanging too.

We have some issues with pests, especially tomato caterpillars. I normally use a treatment of one part dish soap/1part beer in a feeder bottle to fertilize and treat for pests. Anything worse gets diacotimous earth which is also non-toxic. Not a big fan of pesticides, as the ones they use on fruit make my gums itch. The caterpillars also get picked by hand and the eggs burnt.

[Gootsy]

Hey Amandajane,

Today's your lucky day! I was going to delay looking for the blog, because I have 70+ unread blog posts in my reader right now. But figured I'd try a couple guesses to see if I could just catch it right away and BINGO!

The Year-Long GRS Project: How Much Does a Garden Really Save? ∞ Get Rich Slowly

If you don't subscribe to GRS, IMHO you should. It's really good. And this project is pretty cool imo.