So How Does YOUR Garden Grow?

KimB

First Harvest!

This year is an odd year for my container garden. I didn't plant half the things I wanted to plant and I planted more of others that I didn't intend to plant. Translated that means: I got a lot of odds and ends in the buckets.

I started out to plant the "American Standard Issue" garden: Tomatoes and Zucchini. The tomatoes did great until we got an odd freeze and that ended that. The zucchini didn't sprout so that was another disappointment. I did have carrots that made it over the winter and were very happy about the extra cold temperatures. So that was encouraging.

I had lots of odds and ends of old potatoes in the fridge and out of frustration just tossed those into the empty buckets. I made a second pass for zucchini which finally sprouted into a beautiful plant but I never got back to the garden center to find a good tomato plant. Costco was selling nice ones but like all big box stores, they wanted to sell you a lifetime supply of the plants for half your bank account.

I did make a hard core effort to do some more sweet potatoes and found the one I was rooting had a different leaf shape from the ones last year. I did like last year's beautiful plants so I excavated the bottom of the vegetable drawer and found a small one from last year that had missed the cook pot and I sprouted that one too. I waited a long time to get them in the pots though and they were thoroughly root bound by the time I got them planted. After some transplant shock, they have started to Do The Sweet Potato Thing and look fantastic.

The tater plants have taken over nearly every bucket and I planted about 5 different types of taters. Each tater plant has a different leaf shape, coloration and growth pattern and some of those are strikingly beautiful. The blue potato plants have a deep purple stem with a green leaf. I always plan to write down what I've planted in each bucket but by the time the plants start to sprout I've forgotten where I put my notes so I will just have to wait to see if there's a pony in there at harvest time.

With the drought and odd weather in California, I really didn't think things would do well but SURPRISE! There's some good things popping up in the buckets.



First Harvest May 2015