I think out of all the things that I know, this is my favorite subject to talk about. It is my heart for everyone who wants a garden, to be able have a garden, no matter how small. Something therapeutic about growing your own food and flowers.

Whether life’s circumstances have forced you to move someplace where you don’t have room for a massive garden like you had back on the farm or you’re getting up in years and can no longer take care of one, you can still have a “pot of posies”. Preferably with a vegetable sharing the real estate.

Containers are great. They can be moved around if you don’t have enough sun (put them on rollers), you don’t have to weed much, if you move, you take them with you, your food is closer to your back door, and the list goes on. Another nice thing about container gardens is you can brighten up your sitting area.

You can grow herbs, vegetables, and flowers in them. Patios, balconies, porches, anywhere you are getting some sun, although there are flowers that do like shade. I grow lettuce in pots and while they can’t take deep shade (think maple tree) they will take dappled shade and some sun in the morning.

“Rules”

There are some definite “rules” that I tell all my customers:

• The BIGGER the pot the better (more soil volume, less drying out, less watering. less leaching of fertilizer)
• Always make sure there is DRAINAGE in the bottom (if your plant is wilting despite consistent watering, it is probably growing and you forgot to put in drainage of some sort)
• NEVER use garden soil in them, ALWAYS use a quality potting mix. (garden soil is not your friend in a pot, it is heavy and creates an environment where beasties can flourish)
• WATER consistently and frequently, on hot days it will probably be every day (see first “rule”)
• FERTILIZE frequently, depending on the plant, half or quarter strength once or twice a week. Read the labels. (It is harder to fertilize organically, and Miracle Gro has never been known to grow a third eye. Just saying)
• Provide ADEQUATE SUN or SHADE. Know your plant and only plant those that like the same conditions in the same pot. Cool or hot temps, sun or shade, dry or wet.(impatiens and pansies are bad companions, as are fuchsias and petunias)

Containers

The sky is the limit when it comes to what kind of container to use. We cruise garage and estate sales for pretty and inexpensive pots. Having a limited budget, I can’t afford to buy those $150 containers that I drool over at the garden centers, so I try to find them gently used at a more reasonable price.

Old cooking pots make great containers; soup pots, stock pots, teapots, coffee pots and old blue-spotted canners, I like to use colanders to plant my lettuce bowl (perfect drainage).  Broken pots can be used in the garden. Old black plastic tubs that used to hold trees and large shrubs can be had from landscape businesses, old wheelbarrows, really old washing machines, tubs, horse troughs, wooden barrels, large heavy-duty plastic planting containers, metal gutters, watering cans, metal pitchers, you get the gist of it.

Just be sure to put holes in the bottom. Make sure that you choose a large one if it is going to be in the sun all day. I have a bit more freedom to use smaller and cuter pots (such as the turtle, snail and “flower bed” pictured below} for shade plants because that won’t dry out so fast.

My next post will be about what to grow in these pots. Did you know that I actually grew carrots in pots last year? Stay tuned for that.

There are really a lot of ways to start a garden. Search online for things like straw bale gardens, lasagna gardening, square foot gardening, container gardening, edible gardening, no=till gardening etc. I will cover in-ground, raised bed, edible landscaping and container gardening. These are methods I am familiar with,

In-Ground
If you have a plot, small or late in the backyard that gets 8 hours of sun and is accessible to water, you can start there. Clear the ground of weeds and or grass. an easy, but time-consuming way, is to lay newspaper or cardboard on the ground cover and let the weeds smother. It does take some time to accomplish this. As someone who didn’t take the step to remove the grass in the area I wanted to put a garden in (I just rototilled it in), I advise you to not skip this step. Trust me.

Dig up the area, using a shovel, rototiller or tractor. (We wish we had a tractor!) Dig as far down as you can go, 12″ or more if possible. Roots on some veggies need to go down quite a ways. Apply organic fertilizer such as composted cow manure, horse manure or compost (if it smells like manure, it isn’t composted enough, it should look and smell like dirt). You can use bags from the store or ask your local farmer or landscape supply company. Work it in thoroughly. Smooth it out with a rake. Lettuce, carrots, beets should be planted in a row, squash and melons do best in mounds, corn does best in large blocks etc. Read the backs of your seed packets or search online for the particular vegetables ou want to grow.

Raised Bed Gardening
For me, this is far superior to in-ground gardens. We have extremely rocky soil and it was a nightmare for us. We went to raised bed gardening in our entire plot. We still tilled where we placed our beds so as not to develop a hardpan situation when we brought in our three-way mix.

You can use a lot of things for building the beds. Wood is very pretty but you will have to replace it sooner than later.  You don’t want to use railroad ties or other treated lumber since you don’t want it to leach into the soil. We used standard cinder blocks and capped them with pavers. Worked very well and we won’t have to replace them, plus, we have something to sit on as we weed, and the soil warms up faster in the spring. the pavers keep the weeds from growing up but if you were so inclined you could -plant flowers in the pockets. We laid down a weed block between the rows, followed by bark. Eventually, weeds will sprout but they are a lot easier to pull out! Fill with a three-way mix from a reputable supply company. Depending on the size (make them no wider than 4′ for ease of planting and weeding, you can comfortably reach from either side) and quantity of beds, you will need yards of this stuff.

Every year, we clean up the dead plants and spread mulched leaves from our trees in the fall and let it sit over the winter. In the spring, we put an average of two large wheelbarrows of composted horse manure on them and my honey turns it over with a shovel. That is the only time, human feet step into the beds. We avoid walking in them when possible to keep from compressing the soil. My beds are all 4′ across and vary in length.

This is my motto: “If you take of the soil, it will feed your plants”. I almost NEVER have to add additional fertilizers.

The last thing I want to talk about is Edible Gardening. Vegetables can be pretty. Lettuce comes in many colors and shapes and makes excellent fillers. You can plant them in your flower beds amongst the perennial and shrubs. Just ensure that they are not shaded out by other plants.

My next post will discuss container plantings and then we will cover veggies that are perfect for them.

This is primarily for customers who come to the house and/or the Garden Expo

Good afternoon! Despite the virus situation plaguing our country, we will still be selling plants; tomatoes, peppers, flowers, and veggies. I am transplanting out in the greenhouse and will have some numbers of plants soon. Right now, I am transplanting the third wave of seeds. I was going to do another wave of seeds but right now, I don’t know if the Garden Expo will be canceled or not. My goal is to have 3100 larger plants and around 2000 plus of the smaller plants. We hope to open on April 15th, fingers crossed. You are still welcome to come to the house and browse. I am considering for those of you who are high risk, of filling your orders and running them out to the car for you, or making special appointments where you are basically here alone. My problem is having an area that is warm for putting an order. Obviously, it would have to be picked up immediately, at least within 24 hours. Not sure yet how that is going to look. I feel that with the run on the stores, it’s still more important than ever to control your food source, plus it is most gratifying to grow your own healthy food. I will be sending out an email and putting this on my website and blog when I can get to it.

Just when we breathed a sigh of relief and started looking forward to an early spring, Old Man Winter has come for a brief visit. Two days ago, we in the upper forties, last night it was 15 degrees out at night and maybe it got to 23 in the daytime. Tonight is supposed to be cold also and the wind? It has been blowing like crazy. Brrrrrrrr.

I was going to start transplanting into gallon pots but that needs to be done outside for reasons of my potting station is too big to bring into a greenhouse. I also need to transplant the 2000 or so babies that are under lights in the house and are rearing to go.n Too cold to take them out to the greenhouse. The good thing is we are going to back in the low fifties by Wednesday!

My cards are called Seed Greetings – Why Send Just a Card When You Can Send a Garden

My cards are called Seed Greetings – Why Send Just a Card When You Can Send a Garden?

Meanwhile, I am doing inside work, as in making these nifty little cards with seeds in them (that includes using photoshop to turn my pics into watercolors and working up instructions sheets), getting ready to work on the website, organizing and making large display tags, organizing my vegetable seeds etc. All while watching out my window as it dusts snow over everything.