Sunday, July 15, 2012

Gardening, small scale

This year I decided to shrink my garden to only containers. I though hard about what kinds of plants I wanted, those that were most worth the effort in a small scale garden. Surprising to some who know me I decided against regular tomatoes. Not only are they hard to grow in my back yard but I could never produce a crop big enough to satisfy me. I was never happy with the occasional toasted tomato sandwich. I wanted salsa and jars and jars of pasta sauce. I decided buying them by the bushel this fall makes more sense for me. These are photos of my (mostly container) garden.
My little garden, cucumber, peas and beans, cherry tomatoes, basil, lettuce and the brown things by the fence are garlic.
The cherry tomato is huge with many green ones on it, but I am not happy with the variety, not sweet enough for my taste.
Here are my cucumbers. They aren't doing great. With this drought I should be watering them twice a day but I keep forgetting.
These are peas and beans. I planted the peas in almost every pot and along the fence with my garlic. So far the beans are all leaves, the peas are starting to produce which excites me. If you look hard you can see one in the photo (its like a where's waldo with with all green!)
My Basil, which I cut back and froze today. I'll post about that later. And next to it is a pot of mesclun mix lettuce. I got the Seeds of Change seeds and they are amazing. I have a 2nd container on my balcony growing as well. And a container of spinach too. Next year I think we'll double our lettuce/spinach production. It is so amazing we could eat it every day if we had enough. Along the fence line you can see my garlic. It will be ready to harvest in about a month. I planted garlic for the first time last year and it was amazing. This year I doubled my crop (18 bulbs) and I have my fingers crossed it will be just as good. I already made pesto with the scapes (another post) and I think I am in love.
So that is my garden. Tiny, but I love it. I just can't go a summer without growing something. This keeps me happy.

4 comments:

  1. I haven't grown tomatoes for a few years for the same reasons. And I'm happy to support a local tomato farmer.

    Love your garden. I need to get my basil into the freezer today

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  2. Ambitious! Hope you get to enjoy both the process and the product. I had a jalapeno pepper from someone's potted garden recently - boy is it a whole different ball game when it's fresh!

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  3. We got a PC grape tomato plant this year - can't remember the exact variety but it was the only mini tomato plant they were carrying. It's FAB - so yummy, tons of flavour. I recommend!

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  4. Oh I so adore this! Container gardening is the only way we can do it!

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