What I'm trying in containers this year-part 1

Well, as all my readers know, I haven't had much success at gardening.  Try as I might at the beginning of the season, by the middle of the season all of my stuff is dead due to neglect, drought, pests, or heaven knows what else.  So I started this blog to try to keep myself accountable and keep track of what I may be doing wrong (or right) so I can do better next time.  All of my prior veggie attempts have been in my backyard garden, so this year one new thing I'm trying is mixing it up by adding some container gardening to compare results.  I'm still waiting on a container eggplant, tomato, sweet potatoes, and for my peppers to grow up a bit, but I realized I'm trying so much in pots this year that I should probably split it into two posts.  So this is the colder weather container gardening I'm doing!  I'll do the other plants in a later post.

Spinach, gourmet, and black seeded lettuce.

Lettuce.  I started this window box at the same time as my seedlings a few weeks ago.  The real goal was to have a small continuous growth of lettuce going year round indoors but I quickly found out that indoors the lettuce was taking FOREVER to grow.  So I moved it outdoors and ta daa, instant salads.  It's a mixture of black seeded simpson, gourmet mix, and baby spinach.  Lettuce you should plant every few weeks during the year because the plants go bitter after a few weeks of maturity (just like us!). 

Peas In-A-Pot.  This is probably the thing I'm most excited about right now; here's the latest photo next to my basil plant at a little under 2 months since planting.  I've never tried peas and they seem to be doing super well!  To get these puppies started I filled the bottom of the pot with about an inch of rocks/pebbles so water drains properly, then about half way with extra topsoil I had, and then finished it off with regular potting soil.  As you can see, a few weeks in they're doing wonderful!  Another thing I've seen on pinterest is putting a coffee filter in the bottom so the soil doesn't drain out when you water the plants.

Strawberries.  I tried these last year and they failed horrible after a few super hot days in a stacking plastic container.  So I went out and got a "true" strawberry pot.  To find out the lack of any special planting I did for these see my prior post on strawberries.  We'll see how these suckers do.  If they all die, I'll be happy to do the special layered PVC pipe ridiculousness, but I'm hoping just 'dirt' will do the trick.

Giant pot of onions and carrots.  I've also never tried onions or carrots so I wanted to test these both in the raised bed AND in a container to see the differences and if they were hard.  So far, all is well in both the container and the garden bed.  With the container I just got the biggest container I could find at Home Depot ($25, what a steal!) and did an inner circle of carrots (the little sprigs there) and an outer ring of 1/3 white, 1/3 red, and 1/3 yellow onions.  As you can see the onions are exploding and the carrots are just liiiiiittle itty bitty in comparison but doing well.

Lilies!

 Also, remember those dead sticks I showed you and how suddenly these little sprouts started appearing out of the pot I pulled them from a few weeks later?  Ta daaaa.  Lilies definitely come back, I'm so excited to see them!  And glad they started sprouting before I decided to re-use the pots!

The great thing about container gardening is that you can move the plant if it's not getting enough sun or is getting too much.  You can also move it closer to the water sources if watering is becoming a problem.  I haven't done it yet on my pots but mulch can be used for container plants too to help them retain moisture.  The only tip I have other than putting a layer of rocks in the bottom before the potting soil (it retains water better than normal dirt) is to do some research on the cost of pots before you just go buy them.  I found that Big Lots was more expensive than Lowe's (shocking) and then that Home Depot was far cheaper than Lowe's, which is usually my go to store.  But the important thing is that even if you're in an apartment you can grow just about anything you want.  There are tons of plants that grow well in containers, and many hybrids from specialty seed companies like Burpee (see my peas in a pot) that are made specifically for containers.  Stay tuned for the post on sweet potatoes, peppers, tomatoes, eggplant, and whatever else I said I was going to do in containers :o)