Intensive Container Gardening

In an effort to keep Salta and her canine pals out of the ground level veggie garden I decided to plant in containers and put a temporary fence in place. It's been pretty effective,  although last week Salta snuck into the enclosure through a whole in the fence and then wasn't sure what to do to get out.

I had another motive for using containers which is to try out intensive gardening in our small urban backyard. After quite a lot of research on containers I came up with the design outlined below. Although the rooftop garden has an irrigation system and self-watering reservoirs I didn't bother with that at ground level. I have planted most things in containers but have put the zucchini, cucumbers and cherry tomatoes right in the ground and will need to water - likely every day. We have a timer for our hose so it shouldn't be a big deal when we're away for extended periods.

Growing holes cut in the sides

I've used a mix of containers, some clay pots, some plastic tubs from a grocery store bakery (again free!). I drilled drain holes in the bottom and drilled some 1.5" holes in the sides. The filled the container to the side holes with Pro-Mix HP and a slow release organic fertilizer to start things off.

Newsprint to stop the soil from failing out

I used a piece of newsprint with an x cut into it to keep the seedling in and soil in place and then filled the container to the tope once I had planted the seedlings on the sides. Then added another plant in the top, generally something that would be a companion to the ones in the sides.

 

Swiss Chard Seedling peeking through Newspaper

So the seedlings peek out the sides of the containers and when they're settled in the start going up - reaching for the sun.













Here's one container fully planted. It should be quite pretty when it fills in with greenery.
















.....and to add some colour to this otherwise somewhat bland posting, here's Mister Cardinal who visits our garden regularly. Also, I was up on the roof this morning and all the plants are doing extremely well, I can't believe how much the tomatoes have grow already and I saw the first signs of buds starting!