container.garden.update.III

Are you sick of hearing about my little garden yet? Because I could talk about it for most of the live long day. I’ve been posting pictures of my urban garden to a local Farm & Food group (with real bona-fide farmers and gardeners and people who actually know what they are doing) and I’ve even impressed some of them with my efforts. At the beginning of the season we asked around to see if the $5 Topsy Turvy Dohickies were worth anything and got mixed reviews. Some people couldn’t get them to produce at all, while the package boasts an up to 30 pound yield per bag. We were hoping for somewhere in the middle and it seems we are doing well! Each of our 3 hangers has gone crazy and is lush and finally starting to produce (both steps further than many in the area). The heritage we chose are smaller higher production plants so we should be looking for quite a few little guys which will have time to mature before the weather turns on us yet again.

I have obviously learned a few more things to add to our ‘gardening lessons’ list and am already excited about the small yet significant changes to next year’s garden.

Lesson 7:  Tomato plants require a lot of water. Like, a lot. It totally makes sense when you take into account how many leafy greens they are constantly pushing, but skipping a day of watering won’t work. The plants will wilt and fall quickly if left without water, but thankfully bounce back just as quickly when you finally get back on your game.

Lesson 8: When planted too close together with a heat wave, your beautiful radishes will bolt and form not a radish, but a long root which does you no good. We harvested a single lonely radish in our last container and had to toss the rest. Here’s hoping this latest planting (ready in 28 days) does better and we have some super sweet radishes to much on.

Compare this photo to the one taken here and you can see how much these plants have grown!