EXPERIMENTAL GARDEN

 

It has been many years since I planted a garden.   Western Maine has many small family farms and the farmer’s market is always well stocked with everything – except tomatoes.

Our last frost is usually late May and the first frost is mid to late September.   This doesn’t leave much time for growing, ripening and harvesting tomatoes.

 

This winter, browsing YouTube, I came across numerous sites of people planting patio gardens using grow bags and decided to give them a try. 

I laid out a patch using landscaping cloth.   I ordered five seven gallon grow bags online.  Locally I purchased potting soil, two dwarf tomato plants, two Sweet 100 cherry tomato plants, one pepper plant, one cucumber plant, and a squash plant.  Then there was fertilizer, bonemeal, and accessories.  All total about seventy dollars.  

 

The sweet 100 cherry tomatoes came in early with a heavy crop and are still producing to this day.  The dwarf tomato plants are just now ready for picking, and will probably have to be ripened in the house.  We got a few cucumbers, four tiny squash, ten peppers, and we will end up with perhaps twenty early girl tomatoes.   

I am not sure I will do this again next year.   I say that now, but when the snow finally goes and we are past the dreary days of mud season, the idea of getting into the soil and growing something may be more appealing.

the Ol’Buzzard 

A REPLY TO 'JUST GAIL' ON RAISED BED GARDENING

You commented on my post about my plans for a spring container garden in Maine, that you wished you could have a raised bed garden.   

One of the YouTube videos I watched has an idea for a movable raised bed garden.   

I am posting the video here, and perhaps it can give you ideas.   

The video is rambling, but the basic idea is intriguing. 

A number of decades ago, here in Maine, sewer sludge was used as a fertilizer in gardens in one of the most productive areas of the state, and now they are finding that the soils and wells of the area are contaminated with heavy metals.   There are a lot of organic gardeners in this area, and of course, they are devastated.   

I do believe that food from home grown gardens is far superior to commercial vegetables we buy at the supermarket, and there is even more control on home grown vegetables than perhaps from organic growers. 

In this time and age of food shortages and rising food cost, going back to Victory Gardens makes sense to me.   Any small amount of our food consumption that I can home grow will make me feel productive, and I will know that the quality of the food is good. 

the Ol'Buzzard

THINKING OF SPRING IN A BLIZZARD

 

 

We received twelve inches of snow earlier in the week, and yesterday we had well over a foot with steady wind.   The snow blower could barely manage the depth and I had to shovel out our gas tanks that were buried. 

A year ago we moved from our cabin in the woods to a more manageable home.   

We loved our cabin, but heating with firewood, and the physical requirements of maintaining our place during the Maine winters, was getting a little much for an octogenarian.

 

The downside of living surrounded by woods was there was never enough sunlight to grow a garden.   I missed gardening. 

 

The place we now live in has a large open front yard with plenty of sunlight.   This spring I intend to plant a starter garden – something small, just a few plants.   Along with the prospect of fresh vegetables, a garden gives me something to plan during the dark days of winter.

 

For the first time in years, I am ordering seed catalogues and watching YouTube bits about gardening.   I am not planning to plant an extensive garden or build raised beds.   Just limited planting in containers and grow-bags.  Grow-bags are something new, and seem ideal for an urban gardener. 

 

 

Our yard is full of ants.   It is my belief that when man finally manages to bring total destruction of surface life on earth, it will be the ants, not the cockroaches that survive.  By using grow-bags, I can plant on our steps, in our parking area and avoid an ant problem.

 

I am thinking about planting one zucchini and one yellow squass (zucchini produce all summer), three tomato plants (one cherry, one determinant and one indeterminant), a cucumber plant, radishes and a large planter with herbs.   But in my mind, the garden keeps getting bigger.

 

Maine has a short growing season so I will buy tomato plants; but I am also thinking about purchasing a small greenhouse to start seeds and seedlings early.  When we lived subsistence, off-the-grid, while attending college, I started my plants in solar heated hot-boxes that I designed, and had plants producing weeks earlier that the locals.

$39.00 at Tractor Supply

 

Maybe I’ll grow some carrots.   Scallions are a necessity.   Then there are peppers - I like peppers; I understand potatoes grow well in grow-bags, and so does lettuce, eggplant, broccoli, beets, bush beans -  I have heard you can grow corn in grow bags -  broccoli and cauliflower…

 

the Ol’Buzzard