Trying To Keep Up With It All
Whew! This is really the first chance I’ve had since I last posted to post again. I’ve either been busy doing, instead of writing, or too wiped to even type. That heat out there is gonna kill me yet, I swear.
I’ve been planting babies into the garden, like cukes, stevia, and bee balm, or tomatoes into SWCs. I’d already put the two Silvery Fir Tree tomatoes into the 18 gal SWC, but this weekend I went to HD and bought 4 of the ugly, but cheap, orange 5 gal buckets. I also bought some white spray paint to cover the ugly orange, but mostly to help with heat reflection. So I built, painted, and planted those two with the two Heatwave tomato babies. Then I put the two watermelon babies into the milk-jug SWCs that the Heatwave were in. By next weekend, no doubt, I’ll have to make 2 more for the watermelon.
Here are a couple pics of the garden as of yesterday evening.
Here are the tomato SWCs. The Heatwave babies are under the mini-milk crates to shade and protect them in the afternoon heat until they get established.
Made a ladder trellis of sorts for the moonflower vine. I’m hoping it’ll grow right up the tree and make a cheap old ash tree look like a moonflower tree eventually. There’s a Mexican Mint Marigold, or Mexican tarragon, plant, a dichondra, and 2 baby coleus in there too. I’m waiting for some hyssop and a Moonlight nasturtium to sprout and grow big enough to stick in the empty spaces.
This bed beside the stairs is where I keep all my container plants and babies until I have their permanent homes ready for them. You can’t see it too well because of the harsh sun and shadow, but the morning glories are growing, ever so slowly, towards the strings and up. the nasturtium I planted on top to trail down are doing okay, too. There are two shrubs for which I need bigger containers, as well as some herbs, including the rosemary for which I’m making the Monster Pot. Speaking of which, it only needs maybe one more layer and water-proofing before I’m ready to try planting in it to see what happens.
I bought a styrofoam beer cooler at the grocery store that’s about 14″ tall and 12″ wide. I’m covering the outside of that with a couple layers of Monster Mud with Mortar, to cover the advertising, but mostly to make the container heavier. I’m sure, with the winds we get here sometimes, the whole thing would blow over if I don’t make it heavier. This one’s for the night-blooming jasmine and a couple trailing annuals. Will do another one for the other shrub next.
The peppers, bell and hot, that I’ve been presprouting in paper towels and baggies keep sprouting in dribs and drabs, so I’ve been putting those all in yogurt containers. Ran out of room under the lights, so I moved all the growing peppers outside into the shade to start hardening them.
Trying to start flower seeds for containers, and have a bunch of those in yogurt and applesauce containers, too.
I love the smell of chamomile almost as much as basil, but if you’ve ever tried to grow chamomile from seed, you know how tiny they are. I sprinkled a bunch of seeds, and ended up with 36 tiny chamomile babies in one container. What is it with 36, anyway? Nevertheless, I had to VERY carefully transplant 36 teensy tiny chamomile into separate containers. Since I was almost out of yogurt cups, I put 4 in each, spaced as far apart as I could get them. I figure when it comes time to plant them out, I can just stick all 4 of them in the space I have for them, and they should be okay. I hope.
The basil babies were begging to be transplanted, but I had to go buy 3″ peat pots, cuz I have used all the yogurt cups. Thought I had enough, but I was obviously wrong. Tonight I transplanted 12 of them, and they are under the lights with the chamomile. Couldn’t do more cuz there’s no more room. Getting seriously short on space here lately! I’ll carry the chamomile and transplanted basil out into the shady spot tomorrow, just to make room for more transplants. Don’t know what I’m gonna do when I run out of space in the shady spots, too! LOL.
What else? Oh yea, I came up with a good idea for my pole bean trellis, and bought the stuff for that, too. It’s gonna require an extra pair of hands, and getting hubby out there to help hasn’t worked so well yet. I’ll post about that, with pics if I remember, when I get it done.
There’s a ton more stuff buzzing around in my head, but the post is already long, and I’m ready for bed. One more thing, I bought the ticket to Colorado Springs for my eldest daughter’s graduation from Jr College in May. I’m looking forward to seeing her and the grandsons I haven’t seen in ages, but I’m also afraid hubby might forget to water the garden while I’m gone, and all my hard work will die! I plan on leaving written instructions, and hope for the best.
You’ve been a busy girl, SB! I’m loving your container garden, and planning something similar myself. Only my buckets aren’t a nice white, they are a bright pickle green! I’m going to put smaller containers in front to try to hide them a bit. After 87F temp yesterday, we’re dropping down 10 degrees today, then down to the low-mid 60s for about a week (with nights in the 30s….brrr), so I’m treading lightly with my tomatoes and peppers right now, and keeping fingers crossed we don’t get a freeze that would damage the garden. I think I’ll try to grow chamomile next year. But not 36 of them
I just painted the buckets white mostly for heat reflection, not that it’s gonna help much when it’s 91 degrees, and the wind is blowing at 22 mph…
I’m seriously considering putting up a PVC frame kind of thing over the tomatoes, and growing either pole beans or some annual vines up the poles and over the top as a shade thing. Maybe even put some rabbit fence or chicken wire around it, and grow something only as tall as the containers, so as to let them get some sun. Or maybe just plant the sweet potatoes, put them in there, and let the vines grow over the sides. Either could work, I guess. That would make the whole thing considerably more attractive, too, which is never a bad thing!
As for the chamomile, I didn’t intend to grow 36 of them, but the seeds are really tiny, so it’s hard to limit how many you sow. Besides, they are small plants, so I can just stick some any-old-where, and they’ll fit…the more the merrier, I guess.
Hope you don’t get a freeze. Almost wish we would, except my garden would really be screwed if we did! At this point, any temperature drop would be a good thing. Some rain would be even better, but it doesn’t look like that’s happening any time soon.