What's Growin'

[houghchrst]

Thought that title might be pretty easy to remember .

Hey all, I have always wanted my own garden. I remember being a little bitty thing and helping out in my grandpa's garden. Eating tomatoes and green beans fresh picked. My grandma's home made tomato juice and her jellies and pickles. We survived on a lot of that stuff when we were little because we grew up very poor but it never marred my love for any of it.

My grandparents didn't live in the country, they got lucky back in the early 60s and bought a one acre corner lot that backed on to a patch of woods near the edge of the city limits. Beautiful property in a wonderful enclosed neighborhood not many homes. Lots of kids and elderly now. New first time buyer families then.

I have always lived in the city and hated it. Couldn't even allow my child out in the yard alone. But God has blessed us and now I live in the home my grandparents built and it still is pretty much the same as when I was growing up. Less a few trees and the garden.

Being disabled there is no way I could maintain a garden. I cannot kneel, bending for any length of time is excruciating, and walking is very limited. I can get around the yard but I am working on beautiful resting stations here and there. Some small areas with seating and a view. So far I have two but would like to add three more.

This year I have decided that I am going to take the plunge and do some container gardening to supplement our diets and because fresh food is always better. Also helps us be more self sufficient.

So I am going to start a thread for those of us who love our flora and fauna, fruits and veggies. Whether looking, smelling, or growing. I will try to post lots of pictures, my own and maybe a wish list or with questions in case someone else knows and I hope ya'll will post your own pictures and say whatever ya want.

I have managed to collect many pots over the years, I have inherited some tubs and got lots of 5 gallon buckets from Freecycle. I also have two camp tables but you can use whatever. Just something to get the plants off the ground so that they are easy to reach. Craigslist always has cheap dining tables or you can even see them out in the trash. Shelves, stands, you can use anything. I am going to work on an actual garden table through out the summer and hope to have it ready by next summer.

These are garden tables and are cheap and easy to make but hard to find.

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I plan to make mine 8-10 feet long, 4-6 feet wide and 12 inches deep. In the last picture you can see that the middle is deep for the more deep rooted plants. 12 inches is pretty deep enough for me because for the climbing or trellisable plants I plan to put in five gallon buckets along my flowerbed fence. I still haven't decided if I want the bottom to be screened or just wood.


So for now this is what I will be using .


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Well dagnabbit I can't attach any more photos to this so I need to check into it.

[Buttons2]

Chris,I now have 4 galvinized water tanks. we used plastic pipe in the bottoms to save on amount of soil needed. they already had a plug to open for drainage. just the right height for me!

if anyone tries this I do have to say the soil has settled so much I now need to remove my plants & add more soil.

and unfortunately my little doggie can jump up into the large tank we use for veggies (she devours the tomatoes).

you should put holes around the bottom of those 5 gal buckets. we use them to water the fruit trees,takes 5 gal of water awhile to leak out. irrigation water is an expense here.

[Beader]

Oooo, aaahhh! Very pretty! I've never paid close attention to the raised gardens before, but that yellow angled one looks particularly fascinating. I have some fairly big pots I used on my deck & most have a single large plant in them, but some I've done colorful arrangements. I also have a wooden railing where I attached bent metal "arms" to hold long trays, so those are easier to manage.

I don't have as much problem kneeling on pads, but can only do so on a Good Day. Same with bending over, but that seems harder on my back sooner, so I have to watch out for too much bending. I know the plants do, but I also need plenty of water handy while I'm working. Also excessive sweating seems to rile up my CFS/FMS, so direct sun is iffy when I'm working. Actually, I call myelf the Vampire Gardener since I tend to start near dusk & keep working when it's dark & I can barely see. My old neighbors definitely figured I was crazy.

I'm not gonna be much help in the veggie department, but I know my way around a lot of herbs. Once I got out of school and had my own apartment, I immediately started with indoor plants. When I was briefly married I had a yard, then the townhouse with 3/4 yard [very steep front], and now in my beloved micro climate. I switched gears to flowers, and here I have the voracious tame deer to wrangle.

I'll tell you that my narrow front yard is a gardener's nightmare. The previous owners tried to fool the buyers & put down heavy black plastic covered by chips with a few azaleas & rose of Sharon close to the house. Under that plastic is a serious vein of hard red clay that you could make bricks out of if you baked it. My [shocked] solution -- dig a hole bigger than you need & treat it like you're planting in a clay pot. Fill it with potting soil and pray.

[Beader]

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Let's see how to do this.
From Left to Right:
1) Right side of front garden, untouched from previous owners, first Spring -- note barren chip area
2) Part of back deck with braces in place for long wide white window planter [holders face out because walkway is narrow]
3) My nemesis, up close and munching just outside front picket fence -- they lean over and eat everything so upright green metal posts have 2 wires strung between them so deer's eyes get confused and they are not sure what they're bumping into

Note: deer pic is taken thru window screen in December. If I were outside, I could have shot another 20 with camera. Garage door openers don't faze them. They snicker and laugh naughty little deer laughs when you pass them with your car, and you open the window to yell so all who want to cross the street have crossed before you split the herd and get your car trampled accidentally.

[houghchrst]

Oh my Sher, beautiful, just lovely and I must ask what that most adorable little building is that is off the back porch. It really looks like a bitty cottage which is what I would love to have built out by our bit of creek. Only I want it to be more open, like mostly screened in.

[Beader]

Hey, Chris, that building is one of the reasons I bought this house. Its a two-story "shed" that's huge by my book: two rooms on first floor & loft across entire top w/ pull-up door for privacy. The father used half as a clean tool shed & he was an appliance repairman so he had a surplus of all kinds of tools. A serious do-it-youselfer, too. There's a pot belly stove in the first room & there used to be a ceiling full of skate boards in the rafters. Window AC unit for front window w/ board in it, as well as ceiling fans. Another portable heater in other room, plus double doors to get large stuff in, where they probably drove their riding mower in at some point. I hear the son made the lil cabin into his own private love nest. OK, yuck! :p

I wanted it for my soldering and bead making torches, and to teach classes there. Gas tanks away from the main house, separate heating & cooling, plywood boards for floor so sparks can fly & not damage anything important. Sadly, I have not gotten around to using it yet. I still need to move some heavy work tables & install my tile-on-wood heat-resistant work surfaces. It's been a heart-wrenching dance of whether or not I get to stay, so better not unpack all the delicate stuff like glass rods. Plus the eye problems which finally got resolved around Turkey Day only to be upended in mid-January w/ the lid surgery. You need really good fine-tuned eyesight to solder silver and make tiny little glass worlds in very hot torches.

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[houghchrst]

Sher I am positively green with envy. Yes way too much info on the son lmao. Sounds like something I can turn into a wo-man cave. Well except for the thinking about son. That might be scary.


I really hope you get back to doing the thing you love. Are you thinking you might have to move?


Pati I have no idea why I never thought to do that with the five gallon pails. Ridiculously simple.



I bought a Thornless blackberry bush yesterday. Love me some berries and am hoping to be able to get a few different kinds.

[Buttons2]

Sher,thanks for sharing the pic's! also hope you'll get to use that cute shed. I cannot get back up if I get on my knees so even rubber knee pads are out for me. we accept what we can't change eh?

I'm getting spring fever even though it's nowhere near spring except on the calendar! Chris,Flint was the "city of the day" this morning on Al Roker's map.......80 degrees! yikes!

plan to stop feeding the deer here real soon. I want to get some pansies! hope to see some baby bunnies soon-and pray my cat doesn't eat them all.

[Beader]

When am I supposed to cut back azaleas & rose of sharon? The azaleas are spreading out sideways under the window boxes as well as in front of them, except something was biting them back before I even got outside! I don't believe it's deer b/c I think they kind of shred the stem, given the type of teeth they have. These buds are nipped off clean. So maybe tall rabbits? I had those nasty groundhogs at my other house, & they ate everything in sight & could stand on their creepy little back legs & reach up pretty high, but I haven't noticed any around here. I'll have to ask the neighbors.

The rose of sharon are now leaning away from the house front & are up to the gutters in 2 years. They're impeding my path & wanting to get me in the vulnerable eyes. If I cut back now will I lose flowers on those branches later? Except they bloom towards the end of summer, right? And the azaleas should be blooming fairly soon. I might have to resort to that flexible deer-proof cloth to cover those bushes if I want to see color later. Drat!

[houghchrst]

Hey Mike it says only 5 .jpgs per post. Nothing about the smileys and judging from many of our lovely miss Phyllis's posts there must be a lengthy amount of smileys. (((((((phyllis)))))))).





I found this, http://faq.gardenweb.com/faq/lists/p...920004911.html . I hope you find something that helps.

Here are the rest of the pics I tried to put up.

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Well as of this afternoon I have cabbage, hollyhocks, broccoli and cauliflower coming up and my spinach has a seed or two peeking out. i am excited. so far most of my spring blooming stuff is peeking. My purple hyacinth smells lovely.


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These are what I had for starter seeds. These are the ones that can be started indoors before last frost most of which are the cold crops like lettuce, broccoli, cauliflower. Then I will transplant them to their growing post.

These are little cups that can be planted right in the ground once your seed comes up. I think they are made of coconut fibers (?). I got these from Menards 8 for .79 cents. I snagged two packages :o. Those little dirt pod thingys are what you get in the seedling starter kits. they come compacted flat and when you add water they swell and you add your seeds. A couple of years ago I bought a bunch and had a lot of old seeds that didn't come up so I figured you can use them for something and now I have. THey are also plantable but I just tore the fine mesh that comes around them and broke them up into the pots. Stuck all the pots into a big flat ceramic container and added water to the container. And now they are growing. Sweet!

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Let's move on people and see what happens if I continue this in another post if I can get a few more pics.