Back Again! Summer 2010

This summer the vegetables on my back deck are flourishing - the hot weather and sunshine has made it easy to take care of the plants and they are growing better than ever. I planted less variety and concentrated on my successes from last year. Lots of tomatoes, lettuce, and cucumbers. I have done very little maintenance on the plants except watering, of course. (I never even fertilized...) Now, we're eating salads every night and having regular batches of basil pesto.

My herbs - Basil, Thai Basil, Rosemary, Marjoram, and Nasturtium.

Waiting on the Big Boy to ripen - can't wait to try them!

I'm growing the heirloom San Marzano to try something fun. Look at the unique shape! Will these be as good as the ones grown in Italy? Is my Miracle Grow Container Mix equal to the volcanic soil at the foot of Mt. Vesuvius? One authentic Pizza Napoletana coming up. (Hopefully.)

Here is the surprise and mystery of the summer - the plant tag said I would be harvesting long red chili peppers, and instead these strange bulbous green things appeared. What to do?

There have been a couple disappointments - zucchini that flowers, but never makes a fruit and just flops around half-dead on the deck.

Another problem - one of my sungolds is actively dying from an unknown disease. Luckily I have another very healthy plant.

Lettuce! Love this container variety (Garden Babies Butterhead) - thanks Mom! It started out a little slower than the others, but soon caught up. It grows into a nice lettuce shape and looks very appealing in the container.

This Simpson Elite is a really nice looseleaf lettuce that tastes great on my (B)LTs.

And here we have the Burpee Bibb that grew very well, but just doesn't have the charisma of the Butterhead Babies!

Here is our new patio set shaded by the white pine.

A complete list of what I have growing:

2 Sungold

1 San Marzano

1 Big Boy

1 Celebrity

2 Serrano Peppers

2 Bulbous unknown peppers

4 Boston Pickling Cucumber

Basil

Thai Basil

Marjaram

Nasturtium

Zucchini

Cilantro (failure)

Garden Babies Butterhead Lettuce

Simpson Elite Lettuce

Burpee Bibb Lettuce

Lantana

Marigolds

Date of planting - late! About the third week of June. However, the plants seemed to catch up to last year without a problem.

Weather - nice! Hot and sunny.

Watering - consistently watering when needed - about every other day and sometimes every day.

Fertilizer - osmocote when planted.

No insecticides or fungicides sprayed.

Garden Log #3

The front yard garden bed was planted on July 12 with the following vegetables.

Seeds:

Kohlrabi Purple & White Vienna Blend (Brassica oleracea)

Radish French Breakfast (Raphanus sativus)

Turnip Purple Top White Globe (Brassica rapa)

Bok choy White Stem (Brassic rapa Chinesis Group)

These vegetables were chosen because of their short growing season and the limited amount of time left in Michigan before frost.

I also planted these transplants:

9 Cabbage Bonnie Hybrid

1 Sweet Banana Pepper

1 Mammoth Jalapeno

1 Jalapeno

2 California Green Pepper

3 Black Beauty Eggplant

1 Japanese Eggplant

28 Little Gem Lettuce

Butterhead lettuce transplanted on June 30

Herbs planted July 16:

Lemon Thyme

Silver-Edged Thyme

Chives

Greek Basil

Dill

Italian Parsley (4)

Rosemary

I also planted a variety of annual flowers in the bed including impatiens, marigolds, petunia, allysum, and vinca.

All transplants, except the lettuce, were fertilized with a sprinkle of time release fertilizer in the planting hole.

Go Ahead! Plant Vegetables in your Front Yard.

Having a container vegetable garden on your deck is a fun and convenient way to grow vegetables, however, the space limitations are one drawback to this method. Some gardeners may be compelled to start expanding their garden out into the yard so they can grow a greater variety of vegetables.

I found that it was easier to plant more vegetables in the garden beds that we already had in place, rather than creating a new area, and this happened to be in the front yard. It takes a little more consideration for design and plant type, but vegetables can be an attractive way to greet guests as they come up the walkway to your front door.

As you can see, we already had our foundation plantings in place - very respectable Stella d'Oro daylilies and evergreen shrubs. To liven up the area, I added a few stepping stones, some herbs and a variety of vegetables, and mixed it all together with some brightly colored annuals. Now, from a distance everything is pretty, and up close you can see that a gardener lives on the premises!

For a complete listing of what I planted see Garden Log #3.

Eggplant Harvest (not yet)

I'm making plans for later this summer when my eggplant and tomato will be ready for harvest.  Here's a baked stuffed eggplant dish with tomatoes and lots of fresh herbs.  It was delicious with sauteed crimini mushrooms, zucchini and spiced rice.  Thanks to my mom and dad for the summer tablecloth birthday present!

Is the Garden in Yet?

Almost.  The vegetables that I had from the garden center are all planted.  Tomorrow I'll put in the seeds.  Then I'm sure I'll need to take another trip to the garden center - there may be room to squeeze in one more cherry tomato plant.  And maybe an eggplant?  The time consuming part of a container garden seems to be the transporting of the potting mix.  It's quite heavy to bring from the car, around the house, and up the stairs to the deck.  Then the soil has to be scooped into the pots until the bag is light enough to pour.  I may have to think of a different plan next year to save my back. 
Here's the lineup of pots.  Tomorrow I'll give all the details about what is actually planted.

Here are the herbs, the strawberries that you already saw, and in the background will be the English peas climbing up the teepee.  There's a chili pepper there too.


Spring container vegetable gardening has its challenges - time to relax!