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May 03, 2008

Garden Day

You know, I actually got quite a bit done today. I did some straightening of the back porch, cleaned out all of my pots and got my tomatoes planted.

I grow most of my veggies in pots on the back porch instead of in the ground. I can control things like pests & watering better that way. Every year I dump the old potting soil into various flowerbeds and scrub out the pots, rinse them with vinegar and hydrogen peroxide to kill any lingering nasties and add new potting soil. I also have a special trick to both save on soil and keep the pots from becoming too heavy to move. I put three to six empty plastic water bottles in each one (the number of bottles depends on their size). So, since my tomatoes came on Wednesday (one each of Koralik, Glacier and a plum that I can't recall the name of right now), along with a Mammoth Sweet Basil, I spent a good chunk of the day getting the supplies I needed to plant them and cleaning out the pots.

It's so nice to look out onto the porch and see three little green teepees surrounding the tomato plants. And since I also cleaned out all of the other pots while I was working, they're all ready for new stuff too. I don't know what else I'll plant this year. I'll have to check out the farmer's market to figure out what else I'm going to grow.

The sad bit of this is that one of my pots had to be retired this year. A year or two before we left Portland, I bought a bunch of large-ish, plain terracotta pots from Home Despot. They're in three different sizes, all of them pretty big (three of them took about 2.5 cubic feet of potting soil today). I coated them inside and out with a waterproofing agent and then painted them all differently. The yellow pot with the blue rim and the mottled blue stripes wound around it lost about half of its exterior over the winter. Snow must have got into a crack and just forced its way through the pot. It's now only about half as thick as it needs to be in several places, and I just don't trust it to hold plants and soil.

What's funny is that it's not the pot I expected to lose first. Another one of them, this one yellow with green leaves, has had a big crack in it for two years now, but I keep managing to plant tomatoes in it. I'm betting this summer is its last gasp. Just as long as my tomatoes survive the season, that's all I care about.

If anybody has any suggestions for what I can do with the old, unuseable pots, I'd appreciate hearing them. I know they can't be composted, but I hate the idea of just tossing them.

Anyway, what with the pots I painted (in various patterns and combinations of yellow, pink and sky blue) and the other pots I've picked up along the way, one big, round low purple one that will hold salad greens and a square red one that is destined for the basil, the back porch looks pretty eclectic. Funky. But I kind of like it that way.

Posted by sally at May 3, 2008 05:47 PM

Comments

I can't resist a garden post. And I happen to be an idea person. No guarantee they will be good ideas, but I have ideas;-). You could put the first one upside down and use it for a stand for the second one (with leaves) which you could put a candle holder in to make a glow. You could use either with a piece of wood or something else on top as a low table to set drinks on on the patio or to set some other outdoor ornament on. You could put a plastic pot inside, well supported and fill around it with packing foam and trim around the top so you can't tell there is a second pot in it. You can put them on their side in the garden and half fill them, then plant on the mound so it looks like the pot spilt. It looks good with trailing plants. Break them and put the pieces in cement to make garden stones with artistic flair. Okay, I will shut up now. I hope something triggered an idea for you.

Posted by: Dawn at May 3, 2008 08:56 PM

These are all great ideas!!! Thank you so much! I would never have thought of any of them.

Posted by: Sallyacious [TypeKey Profile Page] at May 4, 2008 09:03 AM

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