Container Garden

Choosing A Container 
Your small garden can be home to many veggies since container gardens offer a very forgiving medium. Tomatoes, beans, cucumbers, you name it and a container garden can have it. But one of the important decisions is what container to use. There are so many different varieties I couldn't even begin to list them all. There are some basic containers that I can let you know about that work beautifully.

First is the Rubbermaid container you can get from your local store. If you drill holes 1" from the bottom and then once every 1" around the perimeter you will have a very affective container for a veggie garden. The biggest downside to these pots are the weight when you have watered them. I personally use these containers for my entire garden and have them in a spot that doesn't change over the course of the growing season.

Next is the large containers that look very ornamental. I'm sure you've seen them at your local home improvement store. If you get one of these make sure there are enough holes for drainage instead of one large hole at the bottom. A lot of these containers have a problem with water log in my personal experience. They are great to grow a garden in but make sure you drill 2-3 small holes about 1" from the bottom.

Terracotta pots have been a favorite for years. They are porous and have been known to "sweat". The only thing to watch out for is to get large pots with a good soil. I always put a tray underneath thats at least 2" deep. The reason is terracotta pots lose moisture through the walls of the container. By using a small tray you can water the garden and let the water stand in the tray and it will wick upwards through the drainage hole allowing your soil to stay moist without drying out or becoming waterlogged. The only problem with this container is the weight won't allow you to move your garden around. If you have tomatoes in your garden or other sun hungry plants you will have to place your container in a sun soaked area before you start adding soil to your container garden.

These are the most common containers I have seen and been asked about with container gardening in mind. If you have any suggestions I'll be happy to hear them. Just send me a quick email.

Thanks for stopping by the farm!

Accident in the Garden!

A few days ago my little greenhouse was going strong. I had it placed on a chair we have outside so that it can catch the sun. Unfortunately I didn't know the fabric was dry rotted and my entire greenhouse fell and spilled everywhere.

So I had to start again and was only able to salvage the tomato plant which seems to have taken the brunt of the fall. My greens that had sprouted were all ruined but I stubbornly saved 2 and planted them next to the tomato plant. I had to replant the rest from seed again. I just hope they sprout soon.

This little incident pushed back my goal of eating a homegrown meal by the end of the year. I am now aiming for January 31st.

Goal

1: To expand my garden from 1 greenhouse to 4 greenhouses
2: To replace 1 meal a week with a homegrown meal
3: To also grow the 2 basic herbs
Cilantro
Basil
4: To quit junkfood altogether without any cheats

I believe that these are very attainable goals. And I would love to increase the homegrown meal from once a week to five times a week.

Next post will be a "How-To" make a $10 greenhouse for use in your apartment. I hope to include pictures!

Thanks for stopping by the farm!

Simplifying

I know I need to write about my garden incident but I wanted to share with you a few things I've been thinking over.

Going green for me in baby steps is an ongoing process and I think "baby steps" really describes my reluctance to give up creature comforts. I really think that is why everyone has such a hard time letting go of things they think they need. I have just started my personal journey and I have yet to give up anything. I have started a small container garden and they only thing I've given up so far is about five minutes a day.

My next step isn't as clear but I'm trying to look at my life and the things I can give up.

On second thought I am going to give up junk food. No this isn't a diet blog but I think to go green it would be a huge improvement to give up all the disposable items that comes with a value meal at a burger joint.

Wrapper, brown bag, cup, cardboard for fries, napkin, wax paper for wrapping the sandwich, plastic lid, straw, plastic ketchup packets.

I would love to say I thought of all the space saved in landfills and also trees butchered out of the air but the truth is with work I have had to get 3-4 junk meals on my way home. Those 3-4 meals filled up a shopping bag. I can only imagine what all the junk meals I've had so far has done to impact the landfill.

So that is my 2nd step in my personal crusade to green up and at the same time simplify my life. I'm sure I might "cheat" once in awhile but I think I might find giving up junk food to be less of a "sacrifice" than I've originally thought.

Thanks for visiting the Farm
P.S. The garden is replanted and I will soon have pics and a "How-to" on starting in container gardening

Disaster In My Garden!

Well this will be a two part about how I started a container garden and it fell and broke!

I had decided to use my balcony as a great (read only) way of growing any vegetables. I went out and bought some of the necessities:

1: 3 large blue Containers
2: 1 Huge bag of organic potting soil
3: 1 Pre-grown Tomato plant
4: Seed Packets
       I bought a "Gourmet Salad" mix

To prep my bins I drilled small holes about 1" apart and 1" from the bottom of the bin. This is to give the soil more than enough drainage. Since it is 1" from the bottom I know that some "reserve" water will stay in the bin to wick upwards as the soil dries out from the top down.

Next, I added the soil about a 1/3 of the way. I took my tomato plant and cut away most of the peat pot and gently loosened the roots and planted the tomato plant 80% of the way below the lip of the bin. I was always afraid to do it this way until I saw that it did make a difference. The plant will grow so much higher and stronger because all the little hair-like bristles on the stem will sprout and become roots. I nipped off the leaves that were going to be buried and then covered the plant.

Once that's done I took the seed packets and made 2 small furrows and planted the seeds inside.

4-6 days later everything was going good. The seeds had sprouted and I licked my lips in anticipation of what they would taste like. Homegrown food! Yum.

Then the "accident" happened.
More on that in the next post.

Going Green In Baby Steps

When I first told a good friend of mine I wanted to go a little green in my day to day life she of course laughed. After she saw I was serious she told me I just had to blog about it.

Great idea!

This little blog will be my adventures in going green in an apartment. I've combed through page after page of content online and they all talk about homesteading. The only catch is you need some space.

I dont have any space to spare!

My patio is 12ft x 5ft I believe and that isn't quite enough room in my opinion. However, I've started a small vegetable garden out there and I will post about new projects and updates/upgrades to current ones.

Here is a small list of things I want to do:
1: Start a veggie garden
2: Start a compost pile (apt. style)
3: Expand veggie garden
4: Explore gray water reclamation
5: Design and build a Self Watering Pot
6: Harvest!
7: Replace 1 meal a week with homegrown goodness

This list isn't complete or even in the right order necessarily. I'm also sure that things will come up that will be added or removed. I do have a personal goal of eating a minimum of 1 meal from homegrown sources. That was actually what started this ball rolling. Here's my, brief, story of why I wanted to do this.

Everyone wants to save a little money so I decided to bite the bullet and brown bag it to work. I went to my favorite supermarket here in Phoenix, Az (there are dozens "favorite" is a misnomer) and picked up everything needed to make sandwiches.

Including a tomato. I love tomatos

I haven't really bought veggies in awhile and it was fun grabbing some. I thought to myself "Hey I can save money and eat healthy!"

All of the tomatos were hybrids. No biggie I'm sure they taste great.

Nope. For the first time in my life I ate a tomato that tasted bland. I mean I do know how a tomato is supposed to taste and it tasted a LITTLE bit like that. But gone was the taste I remember from my grandmas little Victory Garden. I remember it like yesterday with the big red tomatos just sitting on the plant looking delicous.

But not anymore. I went back a week later and I noticed every sign in small print said "Imported from Mexico". Please please understand I really don't care if a product is south of the border. However I would have thought tomatos which are pretty easy to grow would be a product of my own State and if not at least my own Country. Apparently almost all of the food grown comes from a distance greater than 1000 miles.

To me thats disconcerting.

I would think to keep costs down they would like to ship food pretty close to home. Again I'm wrong.

My Solution

Going Green!!!

I will keep you updated on my projects and let you know my solutions for Homesteading in baby steps even if you have an apartment. Please check back often and please give me any ideas and/comments.

Thanks for stopping by the farm!