Container Gardening
It's THAT time of year.
Many of us love to garden, but we live in apartments or trailer parks where space is limited. Even a backyard has limited space and can benefit from container gardening.
Think of it this way. For every square foot of container, you can grow one medium-sized plant, such as a cucumber vine or a pepper plant. You can also grow several carrots, a head of lettuce, a head of cabbage, a stalk of broccoli or cauliflower, or a huge sage plant.
A tomato plant, however, needs more root space than a single square foot. I use very large pots for tomatoes, such as half-barrels.
My first year of container gardening, I built an 8-foot by 8-foot garden using 2 x 12s. I quickly found it was much too large. I couldn’t weed it properly without stepping into the garden. But I did plant one tomato plant in the center of the garden, which all by itself produced a bushel of tomatoes. Wow! It was nearly as wide as the planter I had built, and was six feet tall.
The next year I built several 4-foot by 8-foot planters. I could grow much more than previously, and I could weed it without stepping into the garden.
That year I also grew cayenne peppers and jalapenos, with a bumper crop of jalapenos that year. I made lots of jalapeno jelly, and gave a quarter bushel away to people at church.
One advantage of container gardening is that practically anything that drains (so you don’t overwater and rot the roots) can be used as a container. I have a pair of old cowboy boots in my front garden full of flowers in the summer.
Do you need to wait until spring to begin gardening? Of course not! You can garden INDOORS too. Grow carrots, celery, lettuce, radishes, herbs, whatever you want if you have the space. No windows? Try grow lights. Brighten a corner of your kitchen or bathroom with a little garden of chives. Why not? Did you think only tropical houseplants work inside?
A variation of container gardening is vertical gardening. This is a great solution for limited space. And they work well inside also. Plants that grow well vertically are strawberries, cucumbers and cantaloupes. Also, a frame with “pockets” of soil can be used vertically for your smaller plants such as herbs and carrots.
But vertical gardening pockets, because the pockets that contain the roots are up in the air, require much more water than do climbing plants based in pots. Be aware of the requirements of the method you choose. Container gardening is limited only by your imagination.
May your best planting be this year!
Go with God, Prepared Family.
Remember: “No weapon formed against you shall prosper.” Isaiah 54:17
We will see each other in health.
Blessings,
Mama Prepper
Mama@MamaPrepper.com