Update - 8/2/21

I know I haven't been around in a while, but that's because not much is going on in the garden.

Except today, I found a new flower on one of my tomato plants.  It's one of the ones I grew from seeds!  I'm inordinately excited about this.  Now my one baby tiny tomato might soon have a friend.  And my one tiny tomato is just shy of ping-pong ball size.  Yay.  

In zucchini news, none of them are blooming anymore.  But I have the beginnings of new flowers coming out.  Fingers crossed they're female.  AND male.  Because even though I saved some male flowers, I'm iffy about the viability of the pollen.  No word yet on whether the plants I gave a neighbor are doing any better than my pathetic crew.

Also, several of the zucchini have larger and darker leaves.  So I got that going for me.  

Trying to stay positive is hard sometimes.  Some days, I get discouraged enough that I want to rip all the plants out and feed them to the deer.  Then at least somebody would get some nourishment out of this experiment.  I'm already looking to next year and what I can do differently to achieve a better harvest.  (Or a real harvest.)

By the way, once growing season is over for these plants, they will become deer food.  Unless there's some way to over winter them so they can try again next year.  I'll have to look into that.

Zucchini Information

 Okay, so my zucchinis are still flowering, but still no fruits.  A friend of mine sent me this link to help me figure out the answer.  https://www.hgtv.com/outdoors/flowers-and-plants/vegetables/flower-fail-blossoms-arent-pretty-when-zucchini-wont-fruit

Huzzah.  So, zukes have their male and female parts in separate flowers instead all in each flower.  Silly gits.  As far as I can remember... I haven't been outside yet to look again... mine are only producing male flowers.  But I haven't really lifted their skirts up lately, so I could be wrong.  

Since zukes only have their flowers open first thing in the morning, I'll check when it's light out.  Keep your fingers crossed for me.

In other news, I do have one tiny tomato.  But none of the rest of them are blooming, so I'm not holding out hope for more.  

Plant sex...  It's a thing.  I really need some bow-chicka-bow-bow going on out there or no fruits for the zukes and tomatoes.  Thank goodness no actual sex is necessary for carrots and lettuce.  Next year, I may plant a sexless garden - adding potatoes and maybe spinach.  Leaves and roots, baby.  You can't go far wrong with leaves and roots.

Update: 7:20am.  All the flowers on my zucchini plants are male.  Not a girl in the bunch.  Come to think of it, I don't think I've ever SEEN a female flower out there.  Which means all my previous attempts at hand-fertilizing was wasted.  It's like the Gay Men's Chorus out there.  Lots of show, but no chance of fertilization.  Now I need to research how to get my plants to make some girl flowers so they can make babies and give me veggies to eat.

Update:  7:40am.  Leaving this link here for future reference: 5 Reasons Your Squash Plants Are Only Producing Male Flowers  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wCXSYt6dWUI

Updates - 6/28/21 - First Carrot Harvest

Okay, so after a bunch of research on when to harvest carrots telling me to harvest between 75 and 100 days after planting, I decided today - the 3 month mark - was as good a day as any for the first batch... the ones I never thinned.  

I ended up with a handful of teeny tiny carrots.  Like the biggest one is maybe two inches long and the rest are orange toothpicks.  And only half-sized toothpicks at that.  

The second planting of carrots had got maybe ten or so tops, more judiciously placed.  I'll let them grow longer and see what happens.

In other research, I learned you can eat the carrot greens.  Put them in a salad or dry them and use them like any other herb.  I ate one.  Kinda tart, but might be nice in a soup or stew or mixed in with other greens like lettuce or spinach.  So, right now, the harvest is drying out on the deck table.  I'll bring them in later and clean them up some more.  Eat the little carrots and find a way to preserve the greens.

Additionally, I learned you can eat zucchini leaves and tomato leaves.  Young is best, but any leaves off those two are edible.  Don't take my word for it.  Search 'eating zucchini leaves' or tomato leaves and do your own reading if you're interested.  It wasn't that hard to find how-tos and recipes.  

So, yeah, I'll be eating out of this garden regardless of whether it decides to give me actual veggies or not.  So there.  =op

Update with Pics - 6/10/21

 Good morning!  I know I haven't been here in a while, but that's because nothing major has been going on.  Well, that changed a couple days ago when my zucchinis started blooming!  Yay!

They're going crazy!  Which gives me a decided happy.  Way to go, Zukes!  

In other plant news, the tomatoes are doing well.  Still no blooms on anything but the one I bought and those flowers are gone now.  Hopefully, I'll see tiny fruits start there soon.  

The carrots are okay.  One of the planters where I never separated the seedlings has halfway died.  The others are doing fine.  All the containers planted with single seeds are doing well.  

The lettuces are being eaten a few leaves at a time, mostly on burgers and sandwiches, but are a disappointment.  The lettuce itself is nearly flavorless and easily bruised.  And it wilts quickly.  I won't be doing this species again.  Next year, I'll move to spinach.

In onion news, I am starting to see green on a few members of the set.  Fingers crossed for onions I can actually harvest down the road.

All in all, the container gardening experiment is working.  It's a bit of a pain, but then again, all gardening is.  At least I don't have to worry about critters eating my plants.  The true test will be how much I harvest and whether it was worth it overall.  Time will tell.

Updates 5/27/21 and a Note

Note:  When you pick lettuce, you damn well better eat it right away or it gets wilty.  At least this kind of loose leaf butter lettuce goes wilty.  I had to throw out what I picked a couple days ago.  Bummer.

Updates:  I have buds on several of my zucchini plants now.  The two tomato plants I bought are getting tall and the shorter one has flowers.  The tomatoes I did from seeds are starting to get bigger.  The carrots are growing right along.  

I should probably thin the tomatoes I planted from seed, but I don't have the heart to kill those extra plants.  Silly, I know.  They need thinning to grow big and strong.  Well, for one of them to grow big.  The others would be dead.  See why I don't have the heart to do it?  I'd suck as a farmer.  And this is why we chose not to go into animal husbandry.  I'm pretty sure I could kill a rabbit if I had no other meat to eat, but since I can still get food from the store, I'm not in a position where I need alternative meat sources.  

The other day, I got a wild hair and bought an onion set.  A set is a bunch of baby onion plants.  You plug them into the ground and they grow into big plants with full-sized onions.  I'm planning on putting them in my flower gardens, here and there, to see where they'll grow best.  We'll see how that goes.  If it fails, I'll only have wasted $1.30.  

Speaking of money, I sat down and made a list of everything I've bought strictly for this garden thing.  I'm at about $55.  Not sure if the food I'll grow would've cost that much.  We'll see how this goes, too.  

It's all a learning curve this year.  

Today, we're supposed to get some particularly bad weather.  The plan is to bring everything inside - either in the sun room or in the garage.  Keep your fingers crossed it all goes well.

Updates 05/22/21

Here are the plants today... all in a row.  

Except for the lettuces which are over here:

I've rearranged the deck for optimum growage.  The zucchinis are in the front, because they need horizontal room to spread and the tomatoes and the carrots are in the back because they grow vertically.  The lettuces are in a spot where they get gentle morning sun and by early afternoon, they're in the shade.  Yay.

I also moved out outdoor seating to the east side of the deck, to give more of the sunny spots to the plants.  So we'll be sitting in the shade.  Here's the view from the seating area:

Eventually, the zukes will take over, but I'm okay with that.  There are two doors, so even if the zukes take up all the middle space, we can still get around.  

As the sun dips to the north over the next month or so, I'll have to pull some things more toward the middle of the deck, so they get more sun, but I'm okay with that.  

Updates - May 19, 2021

 Time for some updates.  

Here's a picture of the tomato seedlings:

And here's a pic of the zucchinis, carrots, and the two tomato plants I bought:

Finally, here are the lettuces:

Some of those lettuces should be ready to eat soon.  Then I'll plant more.  

The smaller of the two tomato plants I purchased already has a flower on it, but everything else is ages away from being ready to eat.  

As for the carrots, the three pots I planted of the first variety that I never did thin out are going gangbusters.  I wonder what will happen when I finally get ready to harvest.  I'm hoping for a bunch of small carrots.  We'll see.  This, after all, is a learning curve.  The carrots seeds of the second variety have seedlings already spaced for single growth.  We'll see how the two varieties/planting methods compare when it's all said and done.  

The 17 zucchini plants are getting big.  And I had an 18th plant pop up over the last day or so, I may thin that one.  Thinning plants makes me sad, though, so I might not bother.  

All in all, things are going good.  I've been pulling them back during expected bad weather and sheltering them as best I can.  Then putting them back in the sun when the weather clears.  When they get big, that might not be possible.  With them still being small, I'm happy to move them around as needed.  

Broke Down, Bought Plants

 All my plants are fine, but today I broke down and bought two tomato plants.  My seedlings are so tiny and I'm so impatient.  The new tomato plants are supposedly specifically designed for container gardening.  :fingers crossed:  Meanwhile, the seedlings will continue to grow - hopefully - and I'll get tomatoes from them later in the summer.  

I'm okay with this.  After all, this is the test year.  If growing tomatoes from seeds doesn't work, I'll go with plants only next year.  

The zukes are growing right along - all 17 of them.  We'll see what happens when they start to spread out.  My back deck could turn into a jungle.

Shuttling Plants Around

 Yesterday, I thought I'd read that we were supposed to get splooshed upon, so I brought all the plants inside.  (Because they're too tiny to take a big splooshing yet.)

Then I realized I'd jumped the gun and the plants were going to need to be watered again before the big rain, so I moved them all back outside for watering (because I don't want a big drippy mess in my sunroom.)

16 zucchinis, twelve tomatoes, 5 lettuces, 8 carrots, and one pot with the two baby cedar trees.  42 pots.  And I still have an egg carton with lettuce seedlings in the garage.  Umm...  Yah.

Anyway, I got them all out and I watered them all.  Later, once they've had a chance to drip any excess water, I'll bring them back inside until Tuesday when the weather is supposed to be better.

At some point, these babies will be big enough to handle a splooshing on their own and they'll stay outside, but for now, I'm okay with toting them around.  Huge thanks to Hubs for toting them with me.

Oh, and here's a closeup of some of the baby zukes and lettuces.  Aren't they cute?  I can't wait to eat them up.  

Note: 4/30/21

A FB friend of mine was showing off pictures of her new greenhouse - like 6'x3'x3'.  It's a kit!  Holy cow.  I don't know why I never considered that they had kits to make little greenhouses.  I've got my eye on this one now:  https://www.wayfair.com/outdoor/pdp/vidaxl-984-w-x-492-d-greenhouse-xlvd6942.html .  Too cool.  

But first, let's make this container thing produce food.  Then I'll think about whether the expense is worth it.

Update 5/1/21 - MAY DAY!

Heh, there's no problem.  It's just May Day.  The first day of my favorite month of the year.  =o)

All of the tomatoes are transplanted into bigger pots - one egg carton space worth per pot.  So, I have 12 pots of tomato seedlings - some with only one but most have three to five in there.  I'll probably thin them after they get some more height.  

I've also done away with the carrot transplants that didn't take well and reseeded those containers with the new carrot seeds (they're pink!) and done two more Tampico Punch jugs with seeds.  Five seeds per container at the corners and in the middle.

The zucchinis seem to be thriving in their new pots.  The lettuces are also doing well in their containers.  I started new lettuce seeds last week and those are coming up gangbusters.

I never mention it, but I took one small onion out of the last batch I bought for eating and shoved it into the rosebed.  So far, so good.  Not sure what'll happen, but it was already going in the fridge, so I wasn't planning on eating it anyway.

Yeah, I'm kinda nuts.  This is all sort of a test to see what works and what doesn't.  If the tomatoes don't work well from seed, I'll buy plants next month.  Fingers crossed, though.  I really want my babies to grow and give me fruits.

Updates

Yesterday, I transplanted all the zucchini sprouts into their own, individual pots.  I ended up with 14 potted zucchini plants.  One of them had gotten large enough that I probably should've done the transplant sooner, as I ended up breaking some of its roots.  We'll see if it survives.  

And last night, I left all the zukes and the carrots out.  I think we're past all chances of freezing now.  They're sheltered under the eaves on the deck because I knew it was going to rain all night and all day today.  I don't think they're old enough to handle that much extra water.  Anyway, I went out and checked on them this morning and they all seem to be doing fine.

I had a dream last night wherein my mother was asking me if I was ever going to transplant the tomatoes.  Umm, yah.  I do plan to do that soon.  But I need more dirt.

The lettuce seeds I planted on the 22nd starting showing sprouts yesterday.  5 days from planting to sprouting.  Yay.  The new carrot seeds haven't made an appearance yet.  But they're outside now, too, so maybe that will encourage them to poke their heads up.

Part of me wants to plant some other stuff.  Spinach maybe.  I do love me some fresh spinach.  Potatoes?  Strawberries?  We'll see.  This is already a lot of work, so I may not get too far afield of what I've already done.

If you could plant anything you wanted, what would you plant?  What are some of your favorite fresh produces?  

The Containers

If you looked at my pics, you'll notice a variety of containers in my garden.  Right now, there are ice cream containers, and chip containers, and egg crates, and coffee cans and... well, of course, there are actual plant pots.  

Any container will do as long as it's mostly watertight.  You don't want to use anything cardboard, because the water will ruin them lickety-split.  (When means no oatmeal containers.  Bummer.)  The reason I say mostly watertight, is because you still need them all to be able to drain or your poor plants will drown and rot.  

Thus, at the bottom of each of the MacGyver'd containers, I've cut holes to let the water out.  Basically, I used a box cutter to make Xs.  I was going to use the drill with an auger bit, but the damn drill needed charging and I was irritated, so I took the containers into the garage and stabbed them to death.  The extra liquid drains out fine, but I don't lose any of the dirt like I sometimes do with the actual plant pots.

The actual plant pots, by the way, were acquired from every plant I've ever bought for the yard.  And I've planted a lot of stuff in my outside gardens, so I have loads of those things.  (Good thing I'm such a pack rat.)  If you're not a pack rat like me, you really are going to need to either buy containers or use household things to make your garden.  I'm cheap, so buying containers was not happening for me.  

The ice cream buckets... Yeah, I eat a LOT of ice cream, so I already had tons of those.  (Pack rat, remember.)  I still have several I haven't used yet.  Those will all be lettuces.  The chip containers are carrots.  The egg cartons are for starter seedlings - lettuce and tomatoes.  The coffee can has carrots in it, too.  Anything tall will have carrots in it.  Oh, and I totally forgot about the juice cartons.  Those are Tampico Punch - where I cut the tops off.  They're tall, so they work.  And yes, they have holes in the bottoms, too.

Like I said, anything will work.  You do have to consider what kind of vegetable you're planting in each, though.  The zucchinis are in actual pots - low to the ground with plenty of stability so when they go to vine, they won't tip themselves over.  The tomatoes will also be in similar pots - low and stable - so when they get tall, they won't tip over.  Lettuce needs to be in a big enough container to accommodate the size of the adult plant.  And like I said, carrots have to be in a tall enough pot to fit the length of a full grown carrots.  The carrots seeds I bought are supposed to produce 7-8" carrots, so the containers have to be at least that tall.  Don't want mutant carrots.

Sure, I couldn't spent a ton on real pots.  :shrug:  It's just not my style.  The only thing in a store bought pot - one not purchased with a plant already inside - are the baby cedars.  And I had the pot in the garage for years.  I think it used to have a Christmas cactus in it that I transplanted after I bought it.  It died.  Long live the cedars.

What about you?  What kinds of pot ideas would you have if you were going to create a container garden the MacGyver way?  

Container Update - All Pics

Here's the container garden today, taking in the lovely sun.  They'll go back into the garage this evening and stay there through the next few rainy days.  

It doesn't look like much now, but it's going along.  

Update - No Pics

No pictures today because I'm tired and I'm lazy.

I just finished transplanting 6 zucchini plants as a test.  Each one has its own pot now.  If they go well, I'll transplant the others.  They all look good and the root bases for each was deep and plentiful, so fingers crossed.

I tried transplanting the lettuce into separate pots.  This did not go well.  The little lettuces have intertwined their little roots, so if I pull one to plant, they all go.  I may just eat those as seedlings.  I have started another egg carton with lettuce seeds.  We'll see how the next batch go.

I'm terrified to try transplanting the tomatoes yet.  When they get a little bigger, we'll give it a whirl.  And if it screws up, I have more seeds.  

I also planted more carrot seeds.  Three seeds in each Lays Stax plastic tube.  Four tubes set into an ice cream carton for easy transport.

Everything is out on the deck catching some rays now.  They'll all go back in the garage overnight again.  Soon, they'll be put outside and left there.

If nothing else, this is a good way to channel my frustrations with the world.  This I can control.  Well, almost.  Heh.

(PS.  I ate another little lettuce seedling.  Yum.)

Winter Weather Advisory

It's April 19th and we're under a freakin' Winter Weather Advisory for tomorrow afternoon.  It's not supposed to be this cold this late in the season for this far south.  Blerg.

I had hoped to start moving the plants outside.  Lucky for me, I didn't start the process yet and my entire vegetable garden is still in the garage.  It won't be warm in there, but it will remain above freezing.  

I still need to start repotting some of the plants, but that will have to wait until I have more room, which means until after the freeze is over.  

Fingers crossed the flowering plants I have in my outside gardens survive the snap.  One year we had a snap that killed all the blossoms on our redbud tree. That sucked.  This year the redbud is about done blooming, but it has loads of baby leaves.  

Mother Nature is definitely drunk.

Container Garden Update w/ Pics

 Hello again.  I've got the plants out getting some sun right now, so I thought I'd share some pictures of the gang.

Here they all are...

Here's a closer pic of the zukes, the cedars, the tomatoes, and the lettuces...

Here's a closer pic of another zuke and the carrots...

Now that the lettuce is getting multiple leaves, I need to separate them again.  And plant a new round of lettuces.  The carrots are in desperate need of thinning, but I think I might leave these and see what happens.  Meanwhile, I bought another pack of carrot seeds and plan to plant those more judiciously.  Maybe take Janet's suggestion and use a salt shaker.  

I now have at least ten tiny tomato sprouts.  Those are in the egg crate and they'll need to get a bit bigger before I transplant them.  I also have about seven zucchini plants.  Woohoo.  Zukes galore.  I can't wait.  

I feel like a mad scientist.  And I want to plant more stuff!  Bwa ha ha.

Update

I now have 5 tomato seedlings standing about an inch high, and 3 zucchini seedlings just barely poking out of the soil.  The lettuce is growing right along.  The main carrot pots look fine and more than ready to be thinned.  

The transplanted carrots look like hell, though.  

I have been playing with the idea of NOT thinning all the carrot pots.  You know, just to see what happens.  Will I end up with a bunch of small carrots?  Will they just not grow?  Stay tuned.

The Container Garden Spreadsheet

Okay, so I thought of doing a spreadsheet to chart my progress with the container garden.  Yeah, if you don't know me, I'm a big spreadsheet person.  Anyway, it looks like this:

Pretty snazzy, eh?

I didn't say it would be exciting.  Although, I did think about color coding it.  We'll see.

It's not hard to follow.  The day something happened, what it happened to, and what happened.  L is lettuce, T is tomatoes, C is carrots, Ce are the little cedar trees - which are doing well, by the way.  The taller of the two has new growth at the top.  Squee.

This should help me keep track of what's going on, time spans between planting and sprouting and replanting, leading to eventual harvest.  

It's not on there, but I'm watering once every day to two days in the garage, and I had to water them twice the day they were outside enjoying the sun.  We'll see if the transplanted carrots recover and whether they actually become normal carrots.

You'll note I also mentioned other stuff I planted that isn't in the container garden - the peony and the flower seeds.  That's just so I can keep track of that stuff, too, without building another spreadsheet.  

Anyway, this is me.  Hopefully it helps my journey and doesn't become a pain in the buns.  And that I remember to keep it updated.  :fingers crossed:

Oh, and if you want to follow this blog, all the way at the bottom there's a spot to do that.  

Now, I should probably try to get some sleep before Monday actually comes and I have to do work or something.

The Journey's Beginning

Off and on last year, Hubs and I talked about ways to make ourselves more self-sufficient and growing our own food was always right near the top of the list.  

First, we considered clearing part of the yard to make a regular garden or a terraced garden because we live on a hill.  Unfortunately, we live in an area replete with critters - deer, rabbits, squirrels, opossums, raccoons...  And since we put out food for the critters, thus inviting them into our yard, we realized that in order to have a regular garden we would have to go to the trouble of putting a tall fence around the whole damn thing.  

Now, if you're new to me, I'm lazy.  The mere thought of all the work involved in putting in a regular garden was daunting by itself.  Add in a fence and I balked.  

Then I stumbled on the idea of container gardening.  We have a large deck off the SE side of the house, which is easily 6+" off the ground in the back.  It gets pretty okay sun.  Some days and times of day are better than others, but all in all, it should be a good spot to grow things.  I also already had many many containers of various sizes.  I'm a bit of a hoarder.  I have old plastic ice cream containers, and potato chip tubes and coffee canisters, and all the actual plastic pots anything I ever planted came in.  

So, once I made the decision to go 'full container gardening', I picked up seeds and dirt.  (I don't even want to begin to figure out how to grow without dirt.)  I also started saving egg cartons.  (I hoard, but I'm not insane, so I didn't already have those tucked away.)  

To start, I got tomatoes, carrots, and lettuce - all in seed form.  A salad garden, if you will.  I put the tomatoes and the lettuce into the egg cartons.  I planted the carrots directly into the pots they will spend their whole lives in.  Later, I also got zucchini seeds and put those directly into pots.  Then I put all the pots, etc. on shelves in front of the windows in my garage - those are all south facing.  (One window already had a shelf, and Hubs built the other for me.)  

When the lettuce got large enough, I transplanting the seedlings into containers of their own.  For those, I picked plastic, gallon, ice cream containers.  Three groups in each container.

I attempted transplanting carrots yesterday... There's a reason why they say you can't do that.  Carrot roots at that age are like fine white threads.  They don't go back into the dirt as straight as they were coming out.  I might end up with some funky mutant carrots there.  We'll see.  

I also made a spreadsheet to track all the goings-on.  Again, I'll talk about that another time.  Probably tomorrow.

I'm going to try to remember to take pictures to document the process along the way.  If I'd thought about this blog when I first started my container garden, I would've taken pics then.  But I didn't.  Sorry about that.  

If you have any questions, please feel free to ask.  And feel free to tell me about your journeys as we go along.  I'd also be open to guest posts, if you feel like you have something to share that others might value.  

Oh, and from time to time, there will be short posts here - Thoughts (if I think of something interesting) and Notes (little bits of what I've discovered).  

As with my other blogs, comments here will be moderated.  (They weren't yesterday, but they are today.)  I don't tolerate crap on my blogs.

Anyway, this should be fun and a learning experience.  Let's go.