Container Gardening

[Mystic]

Hi, Jamie Oliver was on TV and he had come up with this awesome idea about Container gardening. You can grow vegetables/fruits anywhere, it doesn't matter if you have a yard at all, look at these sites, and you don't really have to weed, so gardening doesn't take up alot of time and you get fresh produce for free:

http://www.container-gardening-for-food.com/index.html

http://pinterest.com/jennaferlynn/container-gardening/

http://www.ehow.com/how_6458413_grow...er-garden.html

[gourmetsue]

I love his old show that he did at his house in essex with his gardener Brian. He talked about growing potates in old wellies or in any old bag you could find. Great idea.

Is that your pinterest? If so I'm following it. Great board.

Thanks for sharing.

[Shwa Girl]

Use to watch Mark Cullen's show back in the day (no cable) and he did segments on container gardening.
Nice herb garden pics.

I love his old show that he did at his house in essex with his gardener Brian. He talked about growing potates in old wellies or in any old bag you could find. Great idea.

Is that your pinterest? If so I'm following it. Great board.

Thanks for sharing.

Is Jamie Oliver's gardening show online? Do you have a link?
Thx.

[Patty Smyth]

I have all my plants in containers!! Have been doing it for over 15 years, I love it. I mix plants veggies herbs, whatever goes.

[nessa23]

cool idea. Too late for my garden this summer, but maybe next year!

[jessep13]

im doing this..... thought it would be fun for the kids to grow some veggies and it will save us some mula!

[GoJays]

I've got three different tomatoes, an herb container, a cucumber plant, and a watermelon plant going right now. The cucumber and watermelon is just for trial though, if I don't get anything from them, I won't be too disappointed.

[nightlite]

We have this in our backyard right now. 8 x 8 cedar bed filled with fun stuff growing as well as some galvanized buckets on our deck each with strawberries, mesclun lettuce mix and other fruits. Container gardening is quite popular!

[PammieD]

I've been container gardening with mixed success over the past 5 years or so. I've had success with tomatoes, lettuce and even snow peas (my fav!). Other plants have given me mixed results (peppers etc). After moving into a high level in a condo last year though, I discovered that water is a tricky thing to get right! My plants dry out so much more quickly living downtown Toronto on a high level! Last summer I'd have to water some plants twice a day! Not always feasible when trying to a) work! And b) go camping for a weekend etc!

This year I've invested in a few "self watering" containers to try them out. Already, huuuuge difference! Still waiting to see what the yields are like,but it's looking promising!

[kris32]

i am growig watermelon(sugar baby),strawberries, 2 bluebery plants (plan on planting those eventually though),tomatos and dd picked out a baby pepper plant that are all in containers and a few in topsy turvy i got at the dollar store.


This is my first year trying to grow stuff and i am not too successful so far but i am learning. The hardest part for me is watering...not underwatering as mentioned but somehow they always like to stay overwatered even though i have drainage holes.

I came up with a few self watering systems i am trying out. I got 1 self waterer at the dollar store and then i decided to try to use empty jugs of stuff like a rinsed and washed old sunlight dishsoap thing,empty plastic water bottles etc. There are actually how to make your own self waterer ideas if you google it. So far i think the sunlight dishsoap bottle is doing the best job, it was in the sugar baby watermelon and i have noticed the leaves grew a lot since this past week. Tomatos & peppers always seem to be drying out so it doesn't seem to be helping them much.

We already got 2 super tiny strawberries... i must have done something wrong there,lol. It looks like it is dieing now

[Lynn49]

We've had a lot of success with containers: leaf lettuce, cherry tomatoes, cucumbers, zucchini (they both trail onto the ground), and now we're trying pumpkins.
ps...I re-pinned your wagon wheel herb garden into my pinterest..
http://pinterest.com/lyndi49/

[GoJays]

one of my cherry tomatoes.. this one is red, the other two are purple and green and yellow stripe


variegated nasturtium with a mexican something or other plant.. i'll take a picture of it when it blooms


geranium, petunia and not-coleus.. i know i know, i suck at remembering some of them


my herb garden with elephant ears in the background


hardy succulent with miniature irises


you can't really tell but this is my water garden.. there are a couple of little feeder fish swimming around down there, hopefully eating any mosquito larva that happen to swim by them

[Tbites]

GoJays,

Could you please tell me what soil mix you used for your nasturtiums and how often you water them ? I'm growing a bunch of them and the ones that have access to the ground (broke the bottoms of the containers) seem to be doing fine... but the ones in containers keep getting yellow leaves or simply remain stunted. I keep trying to rotate them trying to figure out if they want more sun, less sun... I read these plants didn't like much watering or rich soil, but I'm having the hardest time figuring them out.

ETA: My mix is 1/3 perlite - 1/3 sand - 1/3 compost . But this mix was used for my sweet potato bed last year so the compost should be spent, not too rich.

[muggos0101]

I think it's awesome that it's possible to grow such a wide variety of edibles in containers. I wish I had a greenhouse and a few spare acres, unfortunately I have only a balcony. If you are stuck with containers only like me, I would try to grow whatever saves you the most money, or whatever you enjoy eating the most. Cutting my own basil will save me a few bucks compared to buying the little plastic thing from safeway, potatoes I could probably buy for less than the price of dirt.

[GoJays]

GoJays,

Could you please tell me what soil mix you used for your nasturtiums and how often you water them ? I'm growing a bunch of them and the ones that have access to the ground (broke the bottoms of the containers) seem to be doing fine... but the ones in containers keep getting yellow leaves or simply remain stunted. I keep trying to rotate them trying to figure out if they want more sun, less sun... I read these plants didn't like much watering or rich soil, but I'm having the hardest time figuring them out.

ETA: My mix is 1/3 perlite - 1/3 sand - 1/3 compost . But this mix was used for my sweet potato bed last year so the compost should be spent, not too rich.

You're going to hate this, but I used dirt that has been in a raised bed planter for the past 10 years now. I'm planning on dismantling it (today, as a matter of fact) and I've been slowly scooping the dirt to wherever I needed it. It's a really nice peaty soil from RCSS, it used to come in fairly large bags, I do believe that it was called Super Soil. There isn't any fertilizer or any compost. I water them everyday, it's been very hot here the past few days and I didn't want anything drying out, so they've been quite soggy. Perhaps they like their pot-mate? lol... Anyway, the pot gets full sun from about noon til sundown.

I tend to not coddle my plants - if it lives and flourishes, great, I'll buy it again.. if not then I find something different for next year. For the most part, I break all or most of the rules when it comes to plants. Shade-lovers in the sun, sun-lovers in a semi-shady area. I have a rose bush that is in full shade from morning til night and it's blooming beautifully. I rarely fertilize anything. I have heavy clay soil in my entire yard (stupid builders ) so I have had many plants that expired because they couldn't breathe. But, slowly over the years I've found perennials that do well in the clay. I don't put annuals in the garden, they don't do well there.. they're exclusively in pots.