Container Gardening

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Help! I want to start a small compost pile and do some container gardening next year. I need any and all suggestions for things to grow in containers. If you'd care to suggest your favorite, please feel free to do so and I'd appreciate your including where you get the seeds. Also have a small garden area that we want to till up and plant a few things. It hasn't been used in about 10 years, any suggestions on getting it working good. I live in zone 8, I think, San Antonio, Texas, and we have a long growing season but it is usually very hot and dry. Any help will be very much appreciated. Thanks everyone.

-- Molly Moody (MOODYMOLLY@excite.com), August 31, 1999

Answers

There are lots of fun things to grow in containers, and lots of different containers. One thing I liked alot this summer was sweet potatoes growing out of my large flower pots with the geraniums. The sweet potatoes spread a lush, beautiful foliage all over the pot and down the sides, the geraniums gave nice color. In a few weeks I'll know if I have any nice tubers down in there. I used Centinial Sweet potaoe variety from slips.

-- Kathy (redfernfarm@lisco.com), September 01, 1999.

On the out door garden, rototill it in the fall and sow a cover crop for winter [winter rye, vetch etc].Then in spring, sprinkle a little fish meal on top, rototill in, wait 2 or 3 weeks and plant your garden. This way you will start getting organic matter into soil until compost is ready.

-- Kathy Hart (saddlebronc@msn.com), September 01, 1999.

Hi Molly! I live in zone 5 so I can't help much with the containers...check out Organic Gardening magazine for lots of tips on what to plant in your zone. As for compost, the layering is essential. Green, (grass clippings), brown, (leaves), water, kitchen waste, some soil to start out. TURN, TURN, TURN!! Rotate that pile!! Make sure it gets warm and wet but not TOO wet or it'll SMELL! If you have lots of sun, you lucky duck :), give it a little shade. We have ours in some old pallets that my hubby made into a little house. We used hook an deys so that we can open one door for turning. Theoretical turning I call it since I have a toddler and a newborn and more weeds than anything else!! Good Luck! Heidi

-- Heidi Liscomb (liscomb@logical.net), September 07, 1999.

I live in zone 9 phx,az. The list goes on and on as our season is so long. just about what ever you want from dwarf fruit trees to herbs potatoes, strawberries, tomatoes, etc. etc. Just remember to follow your basic gardening rules... Shade in our long summers,mild frost in our great winters..

-- larry nielsen (nielsenselves@msn.com), September 07, 1999.

Hello Molly!

I use to live in Dallas, now I am in Florida. One of the neatest things I have found to do with an over-run garden area is called "lasagna gardening". I believe this article appeared in the Mother Earth News (sorry countryside...) a few years back and ran again just recently. Basically, you see the area that you want to plant in yet it's too late in the year to do any planting, but, you want it ready for next season. This article tells to "layer" composting stuff; i.e., first a layer of grass clippings, then a layer of barn dirt, next a layer of wet newspaper, and then old hay, leaves, more dirt (chicken yard?), more wet news paper, etc. I tried this on an area last winter about this time, I had bermuda grass in the area where I wanted to plant potatoes this year. So, I wet feed sacks (tear them open flat), put a layer of goat yard dirt, a layer of barn hay, leaves, wet newspaper, compost, chicken house cleanings, leaves, rabbit stuff, etc. Well! Do you know that I tilled that area up this spring without any problems! No grass! And I raised a bumper crop of potatoes to boot!! It was so cool!! I am in the process of doing this for a strawberry garden for the spring. Good luck!!

-- sissy s. (jerreleene@hotmail.com), October 26, 1999.



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