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August 2, 2013
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August 6, 2013
My not so good square foot garden update.
As you will see from my previous post on: Square Foot Garden, I was really excited about this experiment.
Now, I really don’t know where to begin on how this went wrong, other than the plants being in containers that are most likely too shallow. I saw a video of how a guy did his this way and his was lush and producing. As you can see, mine is just the opposite. We have harvested two tomatoes that were delicious and a few cherry tomatoes and a couple of sprigs of cilantro but that is it. It makes me sad when I consider how much attention this little plot has received with nothing in return. My one lonely cherry tomato lol.
Just like the other square foot garden people, we used the expensive organic soil with worm castings mixed in. I have also used organic fertilizer to no avail. This sad puppy does get water every day in case you are wondering.
This has definitely been a learning experience. I have always been able to grow vegetables in the ground but obviously not plastic crates.
These are my sad cucumbers. They look dead at the bottom but healthy at the top? Not one cucumber. The buds die and drop off. Sigh…..
The only word to describe my squash and eggplant is “Horrid.” The bell peppers came with mixed up variety stickers. The reason these have not been picked is because I wasn’t sure if they were turning yellow (the sticker said they were yellow) lol. I have never grown anything other than green bell peppers so I didn’t know what to expect. Now I know that these are tiny green ones that should have been picked. Sigh…
I am sorry that I took this picture with out weed eating the grass around it but hey, this picture describes how I feel about my square foot garden.
They only thing healthy in the garden is the okra so far. The basil is looking pretty good (not in this picture). The unproductive tomatoes, cucumbers & squash makes me sad.
This is where I got the idea to try the crates http://youtu.be/EeKufjx1GZ8
5 Comments
Oh no! What a shame! Don’t give up and let this discourage you! Please try again next year 🙂
Amy, I am a very transparent person. To a fault I think. I like to think of it as living out loud. It’s just who I am. You were encouraging me from day one. Maybe I should have stopped and sent you a message on what to do when there was still time. 🙁 I have learned so much from your blog and even though we are on different continents and a I am sort of a suburbanite, I still want to grow things. I have asked for a greenhouse from Santa. 🙂 Thank you for your support!!
Hi Alana, thank you for your comments. I will look into the Earth Boxes. The sole purpose for me to try this was an experiment that I thought would work after all the YouTube videos on the subject. As far as water goes, it gets water every day. Sometimes twice a day because of the vents in the side of crates. I know it looks like it is parched but my husband told me he thought I was watering it too much?? But when I first planted the garden, I immediately started noticing something was off. My jalapeno peppers are today the exact same size today than the day I planted them. Not one once of growth but they are still alive. Weird. Then at first the tomatoes and cucumbers started taking off and were doing great until they started putting out buds. The tomato leaves started curling and the cucumber leaves started turning yellow like everything else. I do still have okra that looks healthy but I would have thought they would be taller and producing by now. I will look into the Earth box. I thought this would have been a nice alternative to tilling the ground. I guess I will make a trip to the farmers market. 🙂
First, let me encourage you. Container gardening is harder than you might think. Please try again next year! I’ve had some success with Earth Boxes (which are a lot more expensive than free crates, I admit). One nice thing about Earth Boxes is that they self water – you put water into a pipe thing that sticks out the top once a week or so, using a garden hose. But I’ve also used very large flowerpots…. So, a couple of questions: First, were the varieties (I realize a lot of your plants were freebies) specially suited for “patio” or container growing? Second, are you watering often enough? If it is hot, you need a LOT of water with a container. (Conversely – do you have good drainage?) Third, you might want to use a potting mix that is designed for container use. There are some that are organic, if that is important to you (and it sounds like it is.). I hope you will try again next year!
Susie,
First of all, I totally admire you not only for your hard work in putting this crate garden in, but also for your transparency in revealing how disappointed you are with the results. If it were me, I don’t think I’d want to admit the failure and would just not mention it. . . but you are a better woman than I!! Secondly, in all the years that I’ve gardened–including the years where I didn’t have a garden but had a row of containers (in my case, 5-gallon buckets and window boxes and pots) on the balcony, I’ve NEVER had as good of luck with container-gardening as I have with planting in the deep soil of a garden. I think, in general, that nearly all plants (even those specifically bred for containers!) just are happier and healthier in deep garden soil–there’s more room for the roots to expand; the drainage is better; the amount of humus and organic matter and worms, etc., is of course much greater. So Susie, I think you did pretty awesome at keeping all these plants alive! Perhaps that dude in the video dug up garden plants and plunked them into the crates and maybe that’s why they looked so healthy? Is there any way you could just dig up a row of that grass yard this fall, cover it up with some thick mulch, and then plant your veggies in it next spring? I would imagine you’d be happier with the results.