Revenge of “Grow Your Own”
by John Weckerle
It’s been a week since we last provided a photo-progress report on our sustainable gardening initiative, and it’s time for an update. The plants are growing fantastically, although comparison with the “control group” may soon be a moot point, as the rabbits have finally noticed it. Three of the four control brussels sprouts have been appropriated, and one cauliflower partially defoliated.
The actual garden beds, however, are well protected against such depredations. There are a number of small yellow squash that have developed, and the green and red bell pepper each have one growing fruit and plenty of flower buds. It is still not clear whether the golden bell pepper will recover from its frost setback.
Today |
June 6 |
Next week, we will introduce you to the second bed. Part of that bed was planted in seed, and many of the seeds have sprouted. The lettuce that was “planted as plants” is ready to provide us with some leaves, so next week we’ll also include a “salad report.”
4 Responses “Revenge of “Grow Your Own””
Does anyone have window box/sill and pot gardening? My plot area won’t be ready this season. I already have herbs – thyme and sage – and have been wondering what vegetables would be suitable for pot raising on my window sills.
Btw I have aged manure to share with anyone willing to come pick it. Swapping manure for advice….hmmm… not a reflection on the advice.
I guess that depends on how deep your window sills are; most vegetables with which I’m familiar need a pretty big pot to produce much indoors. I’ve had limited success with tomatoes, peppers, and string beans indoors, and pretty good success with basil and sage. Remember that there’s still plenty of time to get things together for an outdoor planting of fall vegetables!
I’ve added two more herbs to my window sill spread – parsley and basil. Tyme and (inherited) sage continue to thrive as well, in spite of almost not getting around to trimming back last year’s now woody growths. My sills are a foot deep. I remember seeing advertisements for a strain of tomatoes developed for raising indoor in pots. Not only is this arrangement convenient, but with moderate COPD, I need to avoid working outside some days.
Ah! There’s some information we can work with. Let me fill you in on something I tried last year at the recommendation of a colleague, who has had some good success.
The idea is to grow your tomatoes upside-down, in milk jugs. You can see a picture of the early part of the effort here. I experimented with milk jugs, the suggested method, and also used Folgers coffee containers. I ended up with some good-looking plants and some very tasty, but very small, tomatoes. As it turns out, it’s important to make sure that container-grown tomatoes get plenty of phosphorus; otherwise, you end up with – well, what I ended up with. This means that you should absolutely NOT use standard house plant foods, but a tomato/vegetable food; too much nitrogen and too little phosphorus means great plants but low yields. With that in mind, the standard Miracle-Gro potting soil with time-release fertilizer may not be the best bet.
You can also plant the upper surface of the hanging container with herbs – I did rather well with basil and dill, and decently with cilantro. With or without the herbs, it’s a good idea to put a thin layer of mulch in the top to keep soil and roots from drying out. The containers are small enough to fit easily in a foot-deep window opening, and hanging them will leave your sills available for herbs and other plants. Note: planting dill near tomatoes is a great idea: tomato hornworms and other caterpillars love dill more than they love tomatoes, and the airy structure of the dill plants makes them easy to spot, after which tossing them over the fence is no effort.
I’ve also had some limited success with indoor-grown bell peppers in small containers – again, small fruit, and probably for the same reason, but very tasty. I’ve let the fruit mature to a deep red color, and they still tasted good. The string beans I experimented with provided low yields (tasted good, though), but that may have been because the plants matured when the days were still too short to make for a decent harvest.