I come from a background with very green thumbs, but this is my first year growing my own food. Years past I would have my dad grow them. Well, I am blessed to live in a house older than dirt, and our front yard (HA!) is pretty worthless considering our porch is missing more paint than it has left, and we live beside a road. I'm sure the combination of lead and of exhaust is not so good to grow things in. I bought a bunch of plants, and I have lots of seeds starting. So far I have tomatoes, yellow squash, jalepeno, bell peppers, watermelon, spinach, spring mix, two kinds of cabbage, random herbs, carrots... other things I can't remember off the top of my head. What is the best method for growing these in containers? I have HUGE containers, it takes two fourty pound bags of soil to fill them up. I'm growing tomatoes in one, which I am planning to grow some herbs in too (using a companion planting website). The squash, cucumbers and zuchini are together since they vine, and will hang over the sides rather than grow mostly in the pot (I assume?). The rest I'm going to buy pots for today, but if anyone has suggestions on what the best mixture for this is, or what are some good plants to combine, or anything else, I'd love to hear it. We're huge HUGE HUGE HUGE vegetable fans here, so this is super exciting for me, I just don't want to fuck it up. For the record, I am good with houseplants, heh. OH!! and while I was hauling my pots over to the sunny side of the yard, I noticed stinging nettle growing. Yay dinner. (yeah, the soil isn't good but it's pretty far away from the house where the nettle is, and I figure all the nutrients somehow even it out...I hope!!)
One more question, right now I have regular bags of potting soil. It's just really dark, easily compacted soil. They came in bags of 40 pounds for 1.66 at walmart. It isn't topsoil, it says potting soil. Do I need to add anything, or should I add anything to it, for container gardening. Thanks again!
Some used coffee grounds maybe. I've always found that plants grown in soil I mix the grounds into grow better.
The only major difference in container gardening is you need to be really careful with drainage. Unless you're growing a cypress tree it shouldn't be like a swamp, yah know? So just drill some holes and maybe add rocks for drainage. Other than that, no different from "regular" gardening really. If you use a good organic fertilizer you shouldn't have to worry about nute burn, but be careful of over fertilization.
I already use coffee grounds in my houseplants and they do very well. I only drink organic coffee at home, but I work in a coffeeshop where we rarely have organic. Do you think it's okay to use non organic grounds? I hate to see the amount of waste we generate at work
Thanks, we really really lack rocks in our yard, there might possibly be some in the horse field I could collect but I'm not sure. What else would work in the bottoms for drainage? They already have holes. Speaking of the horse field, is there anything I can do with the horse poop? The horses aren't mine but I can't imagine my neighbors caring if I steal poop. I was planing on using very diluted urine and menstrual blood as fertilizer on the plants I want more leaves rather than flowers, such as the herbs. If I do that do I need to use other fertilizer? And how often do you fertilize?
My husband & I will be building "squirrel-barriers" this year for our second container vegetable garden. We have four 2'x3' all-purpose bins, five 1'x2' rectangular pots, a couple strawberry pots, and a handful of 1-5 gallon pails. What worked for us last year was to drill 3/4" holes ALL over the bottom (every 9" or so) of our containers, and lay a paper coffee filter over each hole before filling them with soil. I can't stress enough how many holes we drilled... after our first good rainfall, we ended up digging everything out and doubling the number of holes as our tomato plants literally washed right out of the soil. I followed the square-foot gardening method for plant-spacing as laid out in the book by Mel Bartholomew, and also used companion planting to help prevent pest & disease issues. Everything seemed to be quite happy with this, and had the squirrels not been overly-enthusiastic with digging my plants up & stealing my veggies, we would have had quite the bumper crop. I have found that one square-foot is NOT enough room for a "sweet 100" cherry tomato plant. (I will be planting two again this year, but giving them each 4 feet as that seems to be about what they used last year) Mel recommends 9 square feet per zucchini plant, and while I haven't got the room to test this myself, I know that from helping my mom garden for years that sounds just about right... those plants get ENORMOUS! The rest of the spacing seems to be just about right as well, from my limited experience. For soil I blended 50% Miracle Grow soil (I could NOT use my own dirt it's all clay, and highly contaminated) with 25% peat moss, and 25% compost. Once a month I would spread a 1" layer of guinea pig manure (horse would be just as ideal) and "mature" kitchen compost onto my gardens, and carefully rake it under. I had read somewhere that menstrual soak-water could be used for flowers & such, but shouldn't be used on food plants. Of course now I can't find the article at all, and don't remember why... but you might want to look into that one first. Definitely check with the neighbor about the horse manure; that's what my mom has used for years, and the larger veggies & melons especially seem to thrive on it. Good luck! If the weather holds out, we'll be building & planting our garden in about 2 weeks. love, mom
how to use horse poop: step 1) dig hole step 2) put in shit step 3) put in a little soil to cover "the present" step 4) Insert seed/plant and completely fill the hole. After a month or so you can add a little around the base of the plant to help. It's really hard to say, without seeing what you're using or growing, how long the nutes will last.
my garden is mostly in containers too. i dont have any soil either, but i refuse to buy it since i dont feel like it is in keeping with what im trying to accomplish with my garden (it makes sense to buy it if you live in the city though). i live down a 5 min trail on the beach, i carry buckets of soil and compost and horse maure down that i get from various places: my parents house, the barn i work at... and mix it with sandy silt deposits that i dig from a nearby stream. since it takes a bit of work for me to get soil, im really cheap with it. with my containers, i first make sure they have plenty of holes, then i fill them about 1 quarter of the way full with pebbles from the beach or sticks for drainage, then 2 quarters full of mulch (seaweed, bits of bark that wash up, hay that i get locally, yard trimmings, leaves, grass clippings, etc.) which will eventually break down into soil- this would be a good place to put manure or compost that is too fresh to apply right to your plants, and then i only use soil for the final quarter. you can plant your seeds and plants into the soil and the roots will feed on the mulch as it decomposes. the drainage will also be excellent. its like lasagne (no-dig) gardening with containers. after putting plants in, or once your seeds have grown a bit, you can put mulch on top. leaves work good and are easier than straw to spread around the plants. i use this awesome mix of seaweed and little bits of wood that washes up on the beach. i dont know how warm it is there where you are, but here its still cold at night and while i have tomatoes, peppers, cukes, squash, etc. inside, i wont be putting them out till early june or so, maybe earlier with hotcaps. ive just been planting every square inch with greens and peas and beets and such that like the spring weather. by the time im ready to put out my warm weather plants, i will have greens to harvest and can put the tomatoes, etc. in where the greens were. also, i hate bare soil so i plant lettuce, basil, nasturtiums, whatever is compatible around all my bigger plants. put shallow roots with deep roots, short with tall, etc. the more soil you cover, the less weeds you will have and the longer the soil will hold water. also, make sure to mulch everything as much as you can. containers need more water than a garden, but mulch will help cut down on watering. good luck
The nurseries I've worked in make their own potting soil: 1 pt. loam 1 pt. sand 3 pt. compost, around here it's a byproduct of the lumber mills, composted sawdust and shavings. This mix allows for drainage with the sand, but has some inate fertility from the loam, and the mulch lightens the load when toting pots around, and provides for moisture retention.
