27. Read about container gardening. Plant at least a tomato plant and preserve the harvest.
I started my little plants last week and am excited to show what I did!
First I took my three home depot buckets and drilled holes around the sides and bottom. This will allow the excess water to drain from the buckets and provided me with a whole lot of fun using my husbands drill!
Then I filled the bottom of the buckets (up to the holes on the sides) with medium sized rocks to aid in the drainage of the water. Finally I filled the buckets up with dirt and placed them out on the back deck where they will get full sunlight.
I went to the store and bought my three baby plants – two tomatoes and one green pepper. Here they are all snug in their buckets. I deep planted them to ensure that the roots will have the ability to grow a large network to keep the plants strong as they grow!
It was a great morning of getting my hands dirty; and who doesn’t love that?
Since these pictures were taken, I purchased cages for the plants to use for support as they grow and also placed two water bottles at the base of each stem to help with support and warmth during the night. They have already begun getting taller and we cannot wait to enjoy the harvest!
Someday, once we have a fence around our yard, I hope to have a larger garden like my friend Morgan and her husband have. But for now container gardening is an exciting way to grow some of my own food without a garden. If I had known that I could grow these plants in containers I may have had a garden back when I lived in an apartment and only had a deck!
What are you growing this summer? How does your garden grow?
My husband found some kind of natural sweetener and has decided to grow it. I can’t remember the name of it, but it tastes sugary when you chew the leaves. We’re trying some grape vines and berry bushes this year too. It will be a couple years before we see the fruit of our efforts with the berries, but it will be worth it!
Congratulations on starting your tomatoes and green peppers! I once read about growing potatoes in a trashcan/bag. When they’re ready to be dug up, you just dump the container over.
Happy Gardening!
I’ve heard of those potatoes too! Only problem is that we tend to store potatoes for long periods of time and then they are way to sprouted to be worth using. Though we thought about just putting one of them in the ground to see what would happen. Unfortunately, it was too cold at the time to plant.