Container Gardening

[Goonie]

.....I was given 20 horseradish roots and tops last week. They are resting nice and snugly in a window box, with all roots covered with dirt. I will process the roots this week , and get the tops into the ground outside as soon as I get a bed prepared for them......

Just a word of caution if you haven't grown horseradish before.....it can easily take over!!! So put it where you can control it. When you go to harvest it, make sure you get ALL of the root out!!! Even a small piece left in place will take over in no time.

I grew it for a few years, and then FOUGHT it for several years after that! Just when I thought that I had dug it all, and won the war......it popped up somewhere else!

So just be vigilant and cautious!!!

 

[veremchuka]

Absolutely true - putting horseradish into the ground will insure it's existence long past TEOTWAWKI! It should make it to when the sun goes super nova in a few billion years, yeh it'll keep coming back at least a few billion!

 

[Goonie]

Absolutely true - putting horseradish into the ground will insure it's existence long past TEOTWAWKI! It should make it to when the sun goes super nova in a few billion years, yeh it'll keep coming back at least a few billion!

Yep....cockroaches, Twinkies, and horseradish!

 

[freebird5825]

Thanks for the horseradish warnings.

The guy who gave the roots/tops to me suggested sinking planks of wood vertically into the ground to contain it. I have an old garlic bed with sunken planks that will work perfectly for this. If it escapes the planked off area, I'll just mow or weed whack it.

I plan to make a new garlic bed using some well rotted compost and soil-less growing mix. My tumbler compost bin has been sitting dormant (no new stuff added) for 3 years, so it will be in fabulous shape as a side dressing for this year's crops.

My backyard garden will become easier to maintain now that I will not be row growing back there. I'm reading Ed Smith's The Vegetable Gardener's Bible to refresh on methods of non-chemical weed control. I've been saving cardboard boxes and will use those as mulch. I don't trust newspaper, no matter what they say they are using for ink.

Now all I need to do is get Mr B interested in gardening. Fat chance of that happening.

 

[james7]

Cardboard boxes as mulch? I've been using fruit and vegetable peelings and table scraps with much success.

 

[freebird5825]

Cardboard boxes as mulch? I've been using fruit and vegetable peelings and table scraps with much success.

Yes, on page 82 of Smith's book, he recommends using pieces of thick cardboard as a sunlight blocker to kill off patches of persistent weeds that can't be controlled by normal manual weeding methods. The rain will flatten the cardboard and eventually the cardboard will decompose into the soil after 1 season.
As far as I'm concerned, the less printer's ink on the cardboard, the better. I will cut and remove any printed letters with an Exacto knife.
I will anchor the cardboard with ground clips or rocks so it won't blow away.

 

[Goonie]

Yes, on page 82 of Smith's book, he recommends using pieces of thick cardboard as a sunlight blocker to kill off patches of persistent weeds that can't be controlled by normal manual weeding methods. The rain will flatten the cardboard and eventually the cardboard will decompose into the soil after 1 season.
As far as I'm concerned, the less printer's ink on the cardboard, the better. I will cut and remove any printed letters with an Exacto knife.
I will anchor the cardboard with ground clips or rocks so it won't blow away.

I have one garden bed that I originally planted with wild flowers. But after several years there was more bindweed growing than flowers, so I did the cardboard mulch deal. A friend of mine worked at an auto body shop, and hauled over several huge cardboard boxes that car fenders had been shipped in. It was very heavy corrugated cardboard that was about 5/16" to 3/8" thick. I covered the entire garden bed with 2 layers of it, and then threw about 2-3" of wood mulch over it to hold it in place and make it look nice.

I've turned that area into a spot for a container garden. It's full sun all day from about 8:30am 'til sunset, and the whole mass of containers last year were planted with lantana. If I recall, the name of the lantana was "Sunset"....hot pink & yellows!!! The lantana looks great there, the bees and butterflies love it, and it even gets watered once in a great while.....it's exceptionally drought tolerant, and a long way from the hose!!!!

Anyway, the layers of heavy cardboard quickly remedied the bindweed problem.......without any chemical herbicide!!!

I also put a couple layers down over a lawn area where I was building a raised veggie bed. Didn't need to dig or remove the sod at all!!! It one of my newer, favorite gardening supplies.....and it's FREE!!!!!

 

[powerplay]

I have one garden bed that I originally planted with wild flowers. But after several years there was more bindweed growing than flowers, so I did the cardboard mulch deal. A friend of mine worked at an auto body shop, and hauled over several huge cardboard boxes that car fenders had been shipped in. It was very heavy corrugated cardboard that was about 5/16" to 3/8" thick. I covered the entire garden bed with 2 layers of it, and then threw about 2-3" of wood mulch over it to hold it in place and make it look nice.

I've turned that area into a spot for a container garden. It's full sun all day from about 8:30am 'til sunset, and the whole mass of containers last year were planted with lantana. If I recall, the name of the lantana was "Sunset"....hot pink & yellows!!! The lantana looks great there, the bees and butterflies love it, and it even gets watered once in a great while.....it's exceptionally drought tolerant, and a long way from the hose!!!!

Anyway, the layers of heavy cardboard quickly remedied the bindweed problem.......without any chemical herbicide!!!

I also put a couple layers down over a lawn area where I was building a raised veggie bed. Didn't need to dig or remove the sod at all!!! It one of my newer, favorite gardening supplies.....and it's FREE!!!!!

I bet watching Craigslist for someone getting rid of moving boxes would be another free source of gardening cardboard.

 

[freebird5825]

I have one garden bed that I originally planted with wild flowers. But after several years there was more bindweed growing than flowers, so I did the cardboard mulch deal. ...
Anyway, the layers of heavy cardboard quickly remedied the bindweed problem.......without any chemical herbicide!!!

The beast in my backyard garden is yarrow, coming from a box of wildflower seed mix I planted years ago. It has also spread into the lawn next to the garden. I will rescue a few blue lupines from the wildflower section and cover the entire area with cardboard. I hope it all dies off. As far as the lawn goes, it's Roundup time.

 

[Goonie]

The beast in my backyard garden is yarrow...........As far as the lawn goes, it's Roundup time.

Unless you don't want the lawn either, use "Weed B Gon" instead of RoundUp! RoundUp is a non-selective herbicide, and will kill whatever it comes in contact with. Weed B Gon is a selective herbicide that won't kill the grass.

 

[veremchuka]

Yarrow is a wildflower that is used by beneficial insects such as lace wings, lady bugs, hover flies, tiny parasitic wasps and probably more. Killing yarrow may result in more problems attacking your vegetables that those beneficial insects are doing for you.

 

[freebird5825]

Unless you don't want the lawn either, use "Weed B Gon" instead of RoundUp! RoundUp is a non-selective herbicide, and will kill whatever it comes in contact with. Weed B Gon is a selective herbicide that won't kill the grass.

Good advice thanks

At first I didn't care about a little yarrow in the lawn, but it is crowding out the grass. It's green, it make great ground cover, but not in the lawn.

 

[freebird5825]

Yarrow is a wildflower that is used by beneficial insects such as lace wings, lady bugs, hover flies, tiny parasitic wasps and probably more. Killing yarrow may result in more problems attacking your vegetables that those beneficial insects are doing for you.

Hmmmm...now you have me thinking.
When I fully transform my backyard garden into a fruit/horseradish/garlic/aparagus factory, I will need some way to keep weeding to a minimum. My hands cannot take hoeing or hand weeding without paying for it for days, weeks....ouch.
Perhaps the cursed yarrow can be used as a green mulch. It has very shallow roots, and does overtake any free space it encounters . I had originally thought about using clover as a ground cover, but then realized bunnies just LOVE clover.
And I will not have to lay down black plastic mulch. If I have to walk over the yarrow to get to my regular stuff, no biggie. I can always weedwhack it down if it gets too crazy.
I think you just gave me a great solution.

 

[freebird5825]

Update on the Garlic in the Earthbox in the Enclosed Porch (GEEP ) Experiment...it rotted.

 

[veremchuka]

Update on the Garlic in the Earthbox in the Enclosed Porch (GEEP ) Experiment...it rotted.

Do you know why? Too much watering? Freeze thaw over winter? I assume the EB has drainage holes?

BTW, in the prior post you mentioned garlic and using yarrow as a green mulch. That is not a good idea because garlic (and onions) do not compete well with weeds.

The things you mentioned are in permanent beds but garlic needs to be planted each year, it's not a perennial. I'd put garlic off to the side by itself and mulch it with shredded leaves, pine needles or straw. Shredded leaves are free but can blow away in windy March and April. I save the straw from last year's tomatoes and put down a 1" thick covering after planting and add 4" of shredded leaves on top of the straw when the ground starts to freeze. Come early March I check for growth and then remove the leaves with a pitch fork leaving the straw as the mulch during the growing season. Straw is like pickup sticks and gets all intertwined with itself and winds don't move it unless it's 50 or 60 mph! Garlic will push up through the straw.

 

[freebird5825]

Do you know why? Too much watering? Freeze thaw over winter? I assume the EB has drainage holes?

My guess is freeze/thaw. We had a screwy winter here.
Yes, the EB has drainage. I watered it one more time before the temps dropped and never again all winter.

 

[freebird5825]

Ok, folks, it's a good time for an indoor veggie parade.

Tomatoes at various growth stages
Russett Potatoes in an EB (foilage just starting to yellow)
Suntan Bell Peppers setting buds (these were planted Jan 1, 2012)
Jalapenos gone wild (just starting to set buds)
The entire indoor farm setup

 

[freebird5825]

I have been busy busy busy getting all those seedlings (grown inside) transplanted to Earthboxes, white 5 gal buckets and any other deep enough household bucket or planter I have on hand, to give them sufficient root space.
My lineup this year is 3 types of tomatoes (cherry, Roma, and Delicious), radishes, carrots, cukes, peas, 4 varieties of peppers, filet and yellow wax bush beans, sugar baby watermelons and pumpkins (outside garden), Romaine lettuce, spinach, plus hanging geraniums and nasturtiums for flowers. Whew!
My Romaine lettuce, spinach and peas are doing fabulously in the Earthboxes. I've been planting a few seeds of lettuce every other week so I should have a summerlong supply of fresh lettuce. I may get some leaf lettuce seeds for variety. The spinach is about 1 week away from first cutting.
The outdoor garden needs some major w*rk, but it has been too humid for me to do more than 45 minutes of tending out there. I have lots of cardboard saved up, so between the weedwhacker and the cardboard and black plastic mulch coverings, I will get it back under control.

So who else is planting and growing ?

 

[simple girl]

I have been busy busy busy getting all those seedlings (grown inside) transplanted to Earthboxes, white 5 gal buckets and any other deep enough household bucket or planter I have on hand, to give them sufficient root space.
My lineup this year is 3 types of tomatoes (cherry, Roma, and Delicious), radishes, carrots, cukes, peas, 4 varieties of peppers, filet and yellow wax bush beans, sugar baby watermelons and pumpkins (outside garden), Romaine lettuce, spinach, plus hanging geraniums and nasturtiums for flowers. Whew!
My Romaine lettuce, spinach and peas are doing fabulously in the Earthboxes. I've been planting a few seeds of lettuce every other week so I should have a summerlong supply of fresh lettuce. I may get some leaf lettuce seeds for variety. The spinach is about 1 week away from first cutting.
The outdoor garden needs some major w*rk, but it has been too humid for me to do more than 45 minutes of tending out there. I have lots of cardboard saved up, so between the weedwhacker and the cardboard and black plastic mulch coverings, I will get it back under control.

So who else is planting and growing ?

Awesome! If you decide to do some lettuce seeds, we planted Black Seeded Simpson green leaf lettuce last year and this year - it is FANTASTIC. Melts in your mouth, nothing like store-bought.

DH revamped my outdoor planters...engineered them so they'd drip away from the deck (water stains from last year). I will post some pics shortly. I've got the following going: green/red peppers, container tomato (decided I needed a smaller version after my 6' minimally yielding ones last year!), thai basil, japanese eggplant, cucumber (pickling type - planted by accident - it will still taste good, I think!), swiss chard, green beans, mesculin and black seeded lettuce, parsley, cilantro, dill, and strawberries. Amazing what you can fit in containers! All doing well, so excited to have my garden a 2nd year. Couldn't have done it without DH's help.

 

[FIREd]

No container gardening for me this year. We are moving in a couple of weeks and, over the next few years, gardening will be reduced to an herb pot in the southwest-facing window of our new condo's kitchen.

 

[simple girl]

Engineering feats by my wonderful hubby....

 

[simple girl]

Baby tomato I spied hiding yesterday. Baby japanese eggplant. Lots of flowering baby cucumbers.

 

[simple girl]

This year we are trying the top deck - seeing if we can trellis the vining part of the cucumbers DOWN instead of up...should be fun to try and harvest them from a ladder below. LOL.

 

[MBAustin]

For the first time in quite a few years, I tried some veggies along with my herbs (since our beds were redone, I figured to do something more productive than perennials in part of them).

Unfortunately, after a few small squash were harvested, my yellow squash plant developed some kind of disease that caused it to stop blooming and lose most of its leaves. Then my yellow pear tomato plant, full of mostly green tomatoes, developed little bumps all over the stems and the stems started dying off. One is still alive but I expect it will succumb also. My heirloom cherry tomato plant is still very healthy, putting out tons of blooms, but most are not setting - I only have a handful of green tomatoes. So this hasn't gone so well. I'll see how the summer goes and plant again in August for a fall crop.

However, on the bright side, my herbs love the new bed!

 

[simple girl]

For the first time in quite a few years, I tried some veggies along with my herbs (since our beds were redone, I figured to do something more productive than perennials in part of them).

Unfortunately, after a few small squash were harvested, my yellow squash plant developed some kind of disease that caused it to stop blooming and lose most of its leaves. Then my yellow pear tomato plant, full of mostly green tomatoes, developed little bumps all over the stems and the stems started dying off. One is still alive but I expect it will succumb also. My heirloom cherry tomato plant is still very healthy, putting out tons of blooms, but most are not setting - I only have a handful of green tomatoes. So this hasn't gone so well. I'll see how the summer goes and plant again in August for a fall crop.

However, on the bright side, my herbs love the new bed!

Herbs looking beautiful!

My yellow squash died out last year, too - didn't try it again - too frustrated! I really want to try patty pan squash next year and see how it does. My tomatoes last year got HUGE and TALL, lots of blossoms, but only modest fruit. I think it was too, too hot for them to set fruit successfully. Hoping my new container version of tomato will do better this year. You might try using a small brush to jiggle the new blooms and help them self-pollinate. The wind or bugs usually do that, but, it couldn't hurt to try. Despite doing that last year, many of mine did not set, though. My friend had the same problem - very hot here in July/August. We'll see what this year brings! Good luck!!!