Container Gardening

I think I’m learning more about my sprayer than I wanted to learn. The other day I decided to give my new Chapin sprayer a spin. I use it for foliar spraying my plants and vegetables with bokashi tea. Part of the tea preparation includes adding molasses which feeds bokashi’s beneficial bacteria. I sometimes add water… Read more

Nutrient-rich bokashi soil retains more moisture than “regular” soil. Regular is in quotes because there is nothing regular about regular soil. Soil is supposed to be nutrient-rich, but we’ve become so accustomed to the stripped down version, which requires synthetic fertilizing, so that anything different is considered an anomaly. Container Garden Last year when I… Read more

As I was evaluating my container garden this year, I couldn’t help but snap a photo of my early strawberries. These are the very same strawberries I almost tossed in the compost pile (thanks Crystal and her SIL for talking me down). There was also another surprise. For seasoned gardeners, this isn’t a big deal… Read more

Last year was the first year of container gardening. All in all, I think my growing season was pretty successful. Now it’s time to get things prepared for this year’s growing season. Changes this Year This year I’ve removed the wheels from the bottom of my containers. While the idea was a good one, it… Read more

My container garden taught me several valuable lessons this summer: Indeterminate cherry tomatoes grow like monsters and cannot be contained by tomato cages. Collard greens grow beautifully in containers and so do basil, tomatoes, lemongrass, spearmint, mesclun mix, dill, mustard greens, jalapenos, cayenne, tarragon, radish and string beans. I think cabbage grows well in containers… Read more

That’s what my tomato plant did. It fell and it was all my fault. When my plants grew larger than expected I purchased a cage to contain them. When they grew beyond the cage, I sat, marveled and watched them grow. I would say to myself, “I really ought to find a way to contain… Read more

Every morning I check my garden to make sure things are moving along swimmingly and that squirrels haven’t been snacking on my tomatoes. In one of my mesclun mix pots I noticed a portion of the growth was stunted. My initial thought was it was getting too much sun, but further investigation told me sun… Read more

I had been so busy with my tomato plants that I almost forgot about my basil. After removing the slime mold from one of the basil plants I took an objective look and realized I should have pinched the basil quite some time ago. They were growing tall with nice big leaves, but they weren’t… Read more

I did my usual container garden and plant check this morning and was greeted by a thick off white moldy type of thing. It almost looked like someone took tapioca pudding and plopped it onto the soil and molded a bit around the bottom of the basil plant. After getting my glasses (and camera) to… Read more