In the Garden

This year, where we are, we've had to opt for a new approach to our garden. We can't dig up the yard, and the cost of wooden raised beds is too much. So we're working with what we've got, or can get for free. (Free's always good!) With a bit of inspiration from Pinterest (yes, we are those people who do the things we see, not just pin them.), we've got ourselves some good container gardens going.

We didn't quite get everything planted we wanted, but some of them being cold weather crops, we could still do some planting this August/September (namely lettuce, and spinach). But our Brussel sprouts, cucumbers, and tomatoes are doing great. There's also snow peas, green peppers, a "spicy" pepper (for the husband, he says it's a good companion plant for the tomatoes. I just hope they are far away enough from the sweet peppers.)

 Our basil plant lasted from last year, it was pretty sickly looking, but Chris transplanted it after it started a new off shoot and it's doing very well now. He's also trying his hand and regrowing a lettuce plant from leftovers. It did well in just water, the roots started to regrow so he's moved it to the dirt. It looked pretty pathetic last night, but seems to have perked up a bit this am. We'll see.

There's also some "volunteer" lettuce hiding out under the cucumber plants. We'd reused the dirt from an attempt to start lettuce in the house for the cucumber seeds. Once we put the cuc seedlings outside the lettuce popped up as a surprise. Chris added some more seeds, seeing how well it did, in to a few empty holes. So we may have a lettuce crop after all.

There's bean plants out there too. But they are competing with dog leads, kids, and cats, so aren't as healthy looking as I'd like. But they're already flowering, so there's still hope. If I could get my hands on a few more large containers, and some dirt (our soil is clay, we have no lucky growing in clay), I'd like to plant some more beans. A loves to eat them straight off the plants.

Positives to container gardens- good black dirt, little weeding, the plants seems to stay moist longer. Negatives to container gardens- just not enough space. Unless of course dirt and containers are unlimited to you.