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Container Gardening
by Nancy Merkle
Why container gardening? Perhaps you live in an apartment and there is nowhere
for you to plant a garden. Maybe you just can't keep up with a large garden
anymore. Well, have you considered container gardening? It's fun. Container
gardening has been used for decades to grow herbs, vegetables, i.e. tomatoes,
and a wide variety of flowers.
Container gardening is convenient for the elderly or the disabled who need
easier access to up keep their gardens. Container gardening can be done on
backyard tabletops, ledges, over the edge of a balcony and even on steps. This
process can be very decorative as well.
Container gardening can be done in store bought containers or homemade
containers. I like to go to garage sales and find some unusual items to grow
plants in. My front yard has very poor soil for planting delicate flowers. So I
leave that soil to my hardier plants like bushes and broad leaf plants. I
discovered an old washtub at a garage sale one day and incorporated this into my
garden for my flowers.
I simply drilled several holes into the bottom of the tub, then put in about an
inch of stones to semi cover the holes so as not to lose too much of the soil.
Then came the soil. This will depend on what you are going to plant.
All Purpose Mixture
2 parts good garden loam
1 part sand
1 part peat moss or other humus
1 teaspoon bone meal for each 5-inch pot of mixture
I plant most of my garden varieties using this mixture. If I plant in an area
where there is a busy activity of bugs I will place a piece of window screening
under the container as this seems to slow down their attack and it gives me a
chance to combat their activities. By placing the screening under the container
it holds the screening tightly to the container, as the weight of the dirt
inside pushes down. This way it is harder for critters like grubs and slugs to
get around the screening, a very handy tool.
Other ideas to name a few are, old watering cans, (these too can be found in
garage sales), and coffee cans decorated by your children, which is a fun
project for a rainy day. For this I give it a spray with any kind of craft
sealant good for outdoors, or simply use these inside. Container gardening can
be fun and quite rewarding.
Nancy and Joe are amateur gardeners that have wonderful tips they and their
neighbors have discovered through the years. She enjoys sharing these with the
cyber neighborhood.
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