Container Gardening Together - Week 10

Greetings!  And Happy national Naked Gardening Day to you!  No Seriously. It's a thing. I would do it, but I had a weird audience today. 

When they stare it makes me feel self conscious about my body and then I second guess everything. White is black, potatoes are beets.  It's just not pretty.  So, I skipped the nudity and went for a more practical approach today.  A tutorial.  One on doing a potato tower!  Also, there's an update on the container garden below if you're interested in that. 

My beets started shooting up tremendously this week!  :) just growing all over the place!

Bell pepper 

My Black Eyed Peas.  Yes, There is still one creepy large one. 

My blue lake beans are getting little bud like things on them. :D

My cabbages are starting to explode with growth as well.

Cayenne Red Pepper

My wee little celery buds.  are growing.

My many cucumber plants

Both of my eggplant plants.

The fennel is trucking along just fine.

My goji

So, I'm pretty certain I have picked out a pretty good place to start the grapevine.  When I put the grapevine in the ground it's pretty much going to be a long term commitment so I want to be sure.  And I'm not one for commitment - just ask my hubby.  HA! 

But it needs to be soon  That grapevine is really starting to burst up there. 

Here you can see all of the greens.  The buttercrunch lettuce is on the far left the georgia collards in the middle and the spinach on the right. 

Isn't the lettuce just gorgeous. 

On the top tier you can see my rosemary (furthest away) The corsican mint (left) and the oregano (right) you can see my cilantro on the middle tier and you can see my basil on the bottom left and my sage on the bottom right. 

On the top tier you can see nearest the front my oregano on the back left you can see my corsican mint and the back right you can see my rosemary. on the middle tier to the left you can see the cilantro and on the right you can see creeping thyme on the bottom tier you can see sage.

On the top tier nearest the front right you can see rosemary, front left you can see corsican mint. middle rear is oregano.  On the middle tier you can see my garlic chives, on the bottom tier on the left side you can see parsley, and on the right side you can see basil.

   

This isn't edibles, but it's yellow and purple Iris. 

Jalapeno

My Kidney Beans Have some little buds of some kind growing on them, too!

Lavender is my absolute favorite herb!  :D  So Excited it's finally coming in!  Lavender, Mint, Lemon Balm, Rose! Now I need to Grow some Loofahs!

The Lemon Balm is coming along well, also.

Lima Beans

Lincoln Green Peas

Marion Tomato

More Marion Tomato

Muskmelon/Cantaloupe

Parsley

My pinto beans also have those Bud things.  :) 

My Radishes Are not ready to be harvested yet.  But this one is...thanks to the neighborhood dog-the-size-of-a-horse

Roma Tomatoes.  Wow.  What a difference From The droopy seedling that I brought home that first Day.  

This is a Rose Bush.  And I probably should have gotten a bit closer, but if you look close you can see my mint growing in the back there. 

Rutgers Tomato

More Rutgers Tomato

Sage.  I find it does So well when it's in partial shade.  

Snow Peas.

The Strawberry patch is actually looking perked up a bit.  It's been a bit droopy. 

This is Sugar Baby Watermelon.  I had three of them.  One already Died.  It just withered away like I never watered it, even though I did everything I could to keep the damned thing wet.  Those blasted things.  I probably won't grow them again.  There a pain in my ass is what they are.  but anyway, I'll keep you posted. 

This is the first tote of yellow squash. 

This is my second tote of yellow squash.

HOW TO MAKE Potato Towers Cheap!

One thing that I thought when I first saw a concept for these was HAY, where in the heck am I going to get HAY I don't live on a RANCH. I don't know these things!  Then I thought...You know...Maybe my readers thought the same things.  So I thought maybe you could benefit from this tutorial as well.

We all know potatoes are inexpensive.  But what could be more inexpensive, healthy, and REWARDING than growing your OWN right at home!    I've decided that I'm going to do Red potatoes, Yukon Gold Potatoes, and Sweet Potatoes.

Here are the basic tools that you are going to need. You can get them all from your local hardware store like Lowe's or home depot (and many of them you probably already have)

Rabbit Fencing.  Personally This is what I got, here and I already had it - so I didn't have to buy it!
Hay. You can get this at Lowe's or Home Depot.  You pay for it in the gardening department and an associate will point you the direction where to drive your car.  they will walk over and load it into your vehicle. It's like $7 bucks for an entire bale of it.
wire clippers
fertilized soil.  I used this It's $3 per cubic foot. 
sprouted potatoes, whatever kind you like
zip ties
landscape fabric (optional)
scissors
gardening gloves (optional, but recommended)

The first thing you need to do is make a circle with your wire and clip it off.  Zip tie the wire until the circle is secure.  I just used 3 zip ties one near the top, on near the middle and one at the very bottom.

Here is a closer look at the Zip Tied Wire

Once you have your circle Zip Tied you can do one of two things.  You can either.
1. Decide on the Potato Tower's forever and ever home and begin putting the dirt and hay in it
2. You can give the potato tower a fabric bottom which will allow you a bit of freedom to move the tower if you need to.  Keep in mind, once these things are filled a few times, you are NOT going to want to move them, and these fabric bottoms are not going to hold.  So you may want to decide pretty quickly where you want them.  I moved mine around a few times and they did okay.

If you want to make the fabric bottom make a square out of landscape fabric and put your wire circle in the middle of it. cut strips outward at each wire interval with scissors as seen below

Tuck the fabric up over the wire so it hangs onto the bottom of the potato tower.

It doesn't have to be perfect. In fact it won't be!  But it should look a little something like this.  

Tie the fabric in double knots (square knots, granny knots, some fancy fisherman's knot, I don't care.) until it's knotted down all the way around.  Feel free to trim off excess fabric. 

If you want to skip creating the fabric bottom, this is where you'll pick up.  Fill the bottom of the cylinder with hay.  You'll want to do this for at least 8 inches.

Make a donut hole on the inside of the hay that you just put in the tower. 

Fill the hole with dirt.

Bury your potatoes with the sprouts pointing up!  cover them with several inches of dirt.

When we see that there is green coming up out of the dirt, then I will post another blog about what to do next.  I will post the link to this blog.