[Graywolf]

Hello all, and gosh I missed you. I am getting a bit older, and doing all that heavy weeding and hoeing is something that my back rebels against these days, so a few years ago, I opted for the container garden approach. If anyone is interested in books, go to www.Hamiltonbook.com. They have an awesome selection of gardening books, lots on container gardening for vegetables and, all at up to 85% off, plus survival books ... to find survival books go to the section on "Nature" and then "Survival". Anyway, yesterday I did some pictures of the areas I use. I have many areas where things grow.
All the containers are filled with Miracle Grow Potting Soil, which we found we could get at a reduced cost, if we bought it by the pallet from Southern States Coop. They beat Wal-Mart regular price. Anyway, this year I opted for all heirloom seeds ... have always used them, with the exception of tomato, cucumber and pepper plants ... I was lazy and used the ones already started. Anyway, I found some really cool varieties from my favorite
heirloom seed place ... if you are interested in heirloom, might I suggest
www.heirloomseeds.com They are great, wonderful seeds, great customer service, order online, and the prices are good, plus the selection is awesome.
Some of my new seeds:

>Black Krim Tomato - (70 days) old Russian variety, 8-12 oz. fruit that has
a salty taste.
>Cherokee Purple Tomato - (82 days) pre 1900, 10-12 oz. fruit, pink to purple
flesh, with a sweet, smoky flavor,very disease resistant.
>Plum Lemon Tomato - (75 days) Old Russian variety, 4oz. fruits with a hint
of citrus flavor, plus they say if Blossom End Rot is a
problem for you, this is your tomato.
>Riesentraube Tomato - (80 days) 1855 German variety. The name means
"giant bunch of grapes". Produces clusters of 20-40
fruits that weigh 3/4 oz. and taste similar to the
Beefsteak tomatoes.
>Blue Hopi Corn - - - 75-110 days) Makes great corn flour.
>Little Spooky Eggplant - (60 days) Grown for generations in Japan. I made
an oops ... said in one of the pictures that the
cucumber was white and from Japan, but it was this
eggplant. Grown on 3'plants and
great in containers.
>Miniature White Cucumbers - (50-55 days) Plants 3' tall, good for containers,
heavy crops, crunchy and sweet, best picked at about
3 inches.
>French Breakfast Radishes - (23 days) 1880 variety that is very mild and
sweet tasting.

Also got some leeks, older variety carrots, corn, Roma tomatoes ... one of my favorites, snow peas, speckled limas, and some other stuff. I might have been a bit excessive: , but I was putting some away for if "TSHTF" use. Oh, and I found some really neat lettuce varieties as well. One that has small heads the size of tennis balls ... single family serving!

I know from the pictures it doesn't look like a lot, but it was more than what my other half and myself could eat last year, and this year I am adding stuff.
I want to get one of those big dehydrators, but we give extra away, so it all
gets used. Now if I can just figure out where to put the pots of corn!

Hope you like the pictures, and I will post more when the garden starts to grow up a bit.
Big Warm Fuzzy Wolfhair Hugs,
Graywolf

 

[Per Ardua]

Thanks for the post Gray! I'm looking at doing some container gardening this summer.

I recently picked up a copy of the new 'Square foot gardening' book by Mel Bartholomew and was quite disapointed. It was really just container gardening using containers of particular dimensions. Yet he claims to have "invented" this new method of gardening and the book is about 40% self promotion.

Cheers,
-Per.

 

[Graywolf]

Container Gardening Books for Per

Hey Per - I checked Hamilton books - web site listed in original post.
Right now they have one book that looks okay under the Gardening section. See "Gardening" and then "Growing Vegetables and Farming". I haven't seen this one, so I don't know how good it is, but here it is just the same.
promo courtesy Hamilton Books

ALL-IN-ONE GARDEN: Grow Vegetables, Fruit, Herbs and Flowers in the Same Space.
By Graham Rice.
Explores how it really is possible to grow food plants right alongside your flowers while still enhancing the beauty of your garden. This book is full of inspirational ideas, helpful suggestions and practical information to help you plant a garden that provides a year-round feast for the eyes and for the table. Well illustrated in color. 176 pages. Published by Cassell.

Paperbound Import · Current · ISBN 1844034518 · Item #6039863
Save $6.00 • Published at $17.95 • Your Price $11.95

I had previously found two books from Hamilton that I thought were exceptional on the subject, and they were:

>The Edible Container Garden (Growing Fresh Food in Small Spaces)
by Michael Guerra for $16.00 Available by www.SimonSays.com

>The Bountiful Container by Rose McGee and Maggie Stuckey for $16.95
Available by www.workman.com

I think the first one is my favorite. I buy books from Hamilton for my shop as well, and I think I have a couple of the Edible Container Garden left if you want one. Just email me if you can't find it. Maybe try Amazon.com too.

Hope this helps. Graywolf

 

[Jerry D Young]

Beautiful garden Graywolf

 

[Per Ardua]

hamilton books

Thanks for the recommendations Gray. I've looked at the books on Hamilton Books as per your suggestion and will likely order a couple of them.

Cheers,
-Per.

 

[kev]

Is that Flowers I see in those pots? Flowers?

 

[Per Ardua]

Flowers

Possible reasons I can think of to grow flowers:

1) They're pretty
2) They smell nice
3) They can give a phycological boost to an otherwise dreary situation
4) You can sell them
5) They can attract beneficial insects (I.e., bees - that is if there's any left )
6) They can protect certain crops by repelling undesirable insects\
7) camoflage (hide the veggies that are gowing.

Just some of my uneducated and ignorant thoughts

Cheers,
-Per

 

[Graywolf]

Is that Flowers I see in those pots? Flowers?

>Yes Kev, I have to admit, they are flowers. There are many reasons for adding them, but I think Per covered it pretty well. I think the biggest reason for me is psychological. There is so much to be depressed about these days, that the world starts to look a bit glum. I keep flowers around me all the time, and it is like little happy faces that smile at me. Even on the bleakest winter day, there is color and something to find joy at seeing. To me, it is beauty that God made, and when you look at a plant with 50 blossoms, and all of them are a bit different, but all beautiful...well, it reminds me that God made all of us much like that, and He is in everything and is watching over us!
AND IT ISN'T AS BAD AS YOU THINK!!!!! A lot of them are perennials and bulbs that come up on their own now. They do attract bees and hummingbirds, and these really cool moths that look like hummingbirds, sort of,
which in turn helps with my orchard. The roses give me rose hips --- high in vitamin C. You can eat Nastursiums (not sure of spelling). It does help to hide the veggies, and as I said in the tomato thread, Marigolds are excellent at keeping away pests, plus Marigolds make a great healing salve ... have you heard of calendula salve? Calendula is another name for Marigolds. I didn't take a picture of it, but on the opposite side of the poarch from the picture, right up beside the house, it never gets sun. I turned that into a shade garden with ferns and flowers that do well in shade. I even put a big planter bottom out there and filled it with water for the birds I feed. To my great surprise, this little tree frog decided that my little "planter bottom pond" with the ferns growing over it and shading it, would be a great place to have babies, so we had about a million tadpoles, that grew up to be little frogs. Slugs are a problem around here, and I found out frogs eat slugs. How cool is that?
..... but mostly, they make my world a brighter place, and they make other people smile when they come to visit!

 

[Kenno]

You can eat flowers,, well some flowers

 

[Graywolf]

Planting

Well howdy folks ... just checking in with a garden update. Yesterday, Monday 4/9, I started getting my oblong planters beside the house ready, and I planted the following heirloom seed:

Six kinds of lettuce:
Black Seed Simpson - 43 days
Tennis Ball Lettuce - 50 days
Rouge d' Hiver Romaine Lettuce - 60 days
Rubin Lettuce - 50 to 60 days
Lollo Rossa Lettuce - 50 to 70 days
Slobolt Lettuce - 45 to 60 days

Two kinds of Bunching Onions:
Evergreen White Bunching - 55 to 120 days
Tokyo Long White Bunching - 65 to 95 days

Today, Tuesday 4/10, I planted:

Two kinds of Snow Peas
Mammoth Melting Sugar Snow Peas - 60 days
Dwarf Gray Sugar Snow Peas - 60 days

Tomorrow I need to get my regular onions planted, and they include:
Walla Walla Onions - 100 to 125 days
Red Burgundy Onions - 95 days

>I am a week or so late with the snow peas, but they are finally in. I just love stir fry! In another week I will get the carrots and radishes put in. They get planted 2 to 3 weeks before the last chance of frost, and here in VA, that is about the 15th of May. Not sure if I am going to plant spring Kale or wait until the fall. Truthfully, the Kale should already be in if I was going to plant it.
>I didn't plant a lot of any one thing, but many varieties. I wanted to get an idea of what each was like before I choose one or two for next year. I will post pics when their little heads start to pop up!
>Oh, I wanted to give you a couple of tips that I discovered in the last couple of years. First, if you are starting seedlings in four packs, a great way to label them is with styrofoam plates. Cut the edges off, leaving the flat center. Then cut the center into strips about 3/4 of an inch. Those are cut in half, and one end is cut on a 90 degree slant. I write on these with a Sharpee Black Pen, and stick the pointed end into the soil. They last until the seedlings go into the ground. The second tip is one I discovered with Lima beans and Green Beans. Once I have the area ready to plant, I soak the seed in water, with a touch of root tone in it for a few hours before I plant them. Last year, the first beans shoots broke the ground after about 7-8 days. I am trying that with the snow peas this year, but I noticed that about half hour for them is enough to soften the seed. Will let you know how that works as well!
Woofie Hugs, Graywolf

 

[kir]

That's a really impressive garden! I've been trying to come up with a way to grow some vegetables in this sadly urban environment I live in and this seems like a good option.

 

[madcritter]

Thanks for this post Graywolf, I am going to try and do some container gardening this year. Here on the beach your lots are real small and that will be the only way I can grow anything here.

 

[madcritter]

started building my green house today using an unfinshed deck Gazebo. Taking lots of pictures. Need to find out when to start planting items in it.

 

[CountryBoy71]

I like Kev's "rule" from his video on growing your own food ... if you can't eat it, grow something else. Yes, you can eat some flowers ... including dandelions and roses ... and they can be quite tasty and nutritious as well. Most people won't go there though ... they aren't "desperate" enough yet. Personally, I think I'll experiment now so when I do have to forage I'll know what the heck I like and don't like, and how to prepare it. ;-)

 

[421slicer]

you can grow some flowers as herbs too! Medicinal and culinary!

 

[bonehedz]

...and it keeps the Minister of War and Finance busy tending them, and ergo away from the garage and your new, um, uh, well...projects...

 

[awe4fire]

Thanks for the post Gray! I'm looking at doing some container gardening this summer.

I recently picked up a copy of the new 'Square foot gardening' book by Mel Bartholomew and was quite disapointed. It was really just container gardening using containers of particular dimensions. Yet he claims to have "invented" this new method of gardening and the book is about 40% self promotion.

Cheers,
-Per.

if his new version the same as the one i picked up about 25 years ago and is it worth getting the latest version?

 

[Imoutriddin]

I tried the container garden last year and do to bad I had trouble with the peppers though. Someone told me to grow a good hot pepper I shouldn't use as rich of a soil. I used all miriacal grow garden soil as well in all the containers. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Oh, and how do I iradicate those agravating aphids!!!

 

[noisynick]

Good Post Gray Wolf.....
I hope my garden fairs as well as yours seems to be doing.
I like to grow Herbs in containers because itseems they do so much better and are easilly manged.
The flowers are great they make the a garden a pleasant respite from the turmoil of todays world I find it makes it a little more worth while..............

 

[Old Tree]

Oh, and how do I iradicate those agravating aphids!!!

lady bugs!
http://www.gardensalive.com/product.asp?pn=5065