Ghetto Gardening 2015
06/28/15:
At this point I have many quickly-growing young plants, and not enough medium-to-large pots to give each of them room to thrive. So I've dumped ivy and weeds out of selected pots, since I'd rather have more tomatoes and flowers than plantings of ivy in 10 different places around the yard. Also, I looked around the house and found buckets and kitchenware that make decent (hopefully quaint-looking and not just ghetto!) outdoor planters. Thrift stores and yard sales are also great places to find real flowerpots for just a few dollars, so I'll be checking some of those out before long.
Clicking on the small images below will bring up a full-size version.
Lots of happy tomato plants.
Watching humans garden is great
entertainment for the urban feline.
A cracked bean pot becomes a planter:
adding a layer of kelp and then good soil.
One of my favorite online resources for a wonderful variety of practical advice is Veronica Setterhall's series of Container Gardening articles at Hyperbrain.me. An intriguing idea she shares is to use local "weed" plants that are high in beneficial nutrients, such as nettles or seaweed, for fertilizer. I did a bit more research on seaweed and found this site, No-Dig Vegetable Garden. So yesterday I walked down to the beach and picked up some kelp. I placed some on top of the soil around a few plants, and in a few instances I added a layer of it beneath the potting soil when transplanting peppers and herbs to larger pots. It will be interesting to see if these fare better than the plants that aren't receiving any fertilizer other than what's present in the potting soil mix.
Little bit of basil.
Rosemary bush.
Sage and geraniums.
The herbs are doing well. It looks like sage, basil, dill, rosemary and thyme can maintain a good amount of healthy green foliage when growing in our sandy soil and partial shade. I picked a mixed handful of these on Saturday and my boyfriend Steve added them to the savory chicken puttanesca dish he makes. The thyme plants are not plentiful however, so I'm going to buy more seeds and see if they'll grow in the same pots with my many tomatoes.
