Monday, July 18, 2011

Weekend in the Garden: Rearranging

We grow the majority of our vegetables in containers. We do not have a lot of ground space for everything we want to grow, and we have found that tomatoes, peppers, and even squash and cucumbers grow nicely in containers. Our plants are on our deck, and as of today I counted 65 (!) containers. As the plants began to grow and spread out, deck space becomes limited fast. So over the weekend, we rearranged things to make it easier for us to move around when we water and harvest.

We grouped the pepper plants in one corner.

The squash plants are short, and it was often hard to reach them underneath the sprawling tomato vines, so we moved them on top of the rail.

We moved our grape tomato plants and a jalapeno, Sweet Chocolate, and Purple Beauty pepper plant to the center and created an aisle so we can walk more easily in between plants when watering, inspecting for aphids and other bad bugs, and for picking vegetables. It's easier to get to the squash plants now. The sunflowers (right corner of bottom picture) are near the back door where they'll get plenty of sun, and it should be more difficult for the squirrels to get to them. Squirrels have been after the seedlings and buds this year.

Our Black Krim and tomatillo plants are on the table.


The most interesting thing we did was put the cucumber plants on the edge so that the vines can hang down. Before, we had them tied up to trellises but that was taking up a lot of space and the curly tendrils would often weave their way into the window screens. We still have some dried up tendrils stuck in there from last year. Having the vines hang over is definitely more fun when it's time to harvest. We'll see how this arrangement works.

Everything is so much more organized now. I liked being in my garden before, but now that things are orderly and I'm not stepping on squash and cucumber blossoms, it's a lot more fun too.

6 comments:

  1. You really do have quite a collection. I have grown a lot of vegetables in containers over the years with great results.

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  2. looking great! i love the cucumbers...when they get longer it will be like a living screen, or one of those beaded curtains from the 60s. i see so many red tomatoes in that second photo!

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  3. What a great job you have done with your container plants. I liked the hanging cucumbers from the porch, that's a very interesting idea..They look cute!

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  4. Your plants are taking over ;) Seriously though way to go, they look happy and healthy, your cucs are very impressive and cant wait to see all the fruit they produce. My friend has made a very full screen on her patio from cucs just using string, looks great. Looking forward to coming back for a follow up...Cheerrs =)

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  5. @Carolyn--thank you! I've done OK with containers too, but some plants do better than others.

    @Emily and Julia -- HA! The idea of a cuke curtain is hilarious! I didn't think about that, but now I want to grow more to see if I can get a full curtain.

    @Vetsy--Thanks Vetsy! I hope they continue to grow cucumbers. :)

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  6. Very interesting container garden, great idea. I'm going to help my daughter set up a patio garden next year. I'll remember your post for sure.

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