Becky tries some different gardening techniques
Becky is trying some unusual, or maybe just different, gardening techniques this year. Our garden last year was typical, we tilled up a block of ground, then poked some seeds and plants in it, hoping that something would grow.
Well, something did. Weeds.
This year Becky had a other ideas. Instead of planting vegetables directly into mother earth, as we did last year, she decided to use containers filled with potting soil…and bags of potting soil themselves.
To heck with real dirt and all the weeds that grow in it. We were going to bypass that step.
At first Becky was a little unsure of her idea.
I was downright skeptical.
But we went forward with it anyway. We planted seeds…we planted seedlings…and we planted plants. None it them in real Alaska dirt, but in potting soil we’d bought at Home Depot.
Every seed and every plant was planted in this manner.
(Well except for our potatoes, and that’s another little story that I’ll get to later.)
Potting soil. Hmmmm. That just didn’t sound right. It seemed too easy, too simple…too obvious.
Nevertheless, it works, and it works good from what we’re seeing.
A couple of months into our experiment and we have loads of green, lush, healthy looking plants in our garden. There’s broccoli & cauliflower, turnips,cabbage, carrots, cucumbers, tomatoes and squash. Among other things.
Really, I’m just not sure what all we have growing out there. Becky has sort of been in charge of the whole project and I don’t know what all she’s planted. I just add water occasionally.
Except for the potatoes, I planted them in a little patch of ground out by my studio and they are my charge. They’re the only things in our entire line of vegetables that need weeding, and I’m delegated to be the responsible weeding person. To actually get down on my knees and work in the dirt when nobody else has too.
Hmmm. Does that sound fair? I mean, does it?
Well anyway, we’re pretty happy with our little garden so far. We’ve even had couple of meals with fresh steamed vegetables, already.
Good stuff. And healthy to boot.
We’re hoping now that a moose doesn’t find our garden. It could happen pretty easily, we know. They pass through here quite regularly. Moose are something you have to live with if you live in Alaska. You can’t fight it… just live with it.
And we’re ready to live with it should it happen.
But we’re kind of praying it won’t.
So if you’re thinking of planting a small garden but don’t have an extra half acre to plant it in, or if you think weeding a garden is too much work and takes too much time, try using bags of potting soil like Becky did. All you have to do is lay them flat on the ground in a sunny location, cut some slits in the bag with a sharp knife, insert the seeds or plants, then keep them watered.
Pretty simple when you think about it. But it sure seems to work for us.
Here’s a few pictures of our garden.
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This is our main garden area, located in a sunny little spot of our front yard. When we started the garden last spring all you could really see here was a few pots and several white bags of potting soil with slits in them. Now it looks beautiful.
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This head of cauliflower will be part of an evening meal sometime this week. Becky steams our fresh vegetables, melts some butter on them and serves them hot. Good, good eating.
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I don’t know, or can’t remember, everything that Becky planted in the garden, but whatever it is looks really healthy at this point.
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The best thing about container gardening is that the containers don’t need to be fancy. Becky bought a dozen of the little blue paper containers at Fred Meyer and they seem to be working just fine so far.
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A very pretty broccoli plant with a nice bunch of broccoli just right for eating. I sure do like the healthy coloring of these plants.
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The cauliflower plants, too, are beautiful. In this picture you can see an example of the slits Becky cut into the bags of potting soil.
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This colorful cabbage plant is just beginning to mature. We’re hoping there is yet enough time to get a head of cabbage before the first freeze. We’re also hoping a moose doesn’t come along to partake of the goods. We’ve found that moose really enjoy eating young cabbage heads right from the plant. They do it in one dainty bite.
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These are peas growing from seeds planted directly into a bag of potting soil. Look how healthy they are, and no weeds, either. Soon I’ll add some strings to give them something more to climb.
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This little garden is in another spot in our yard. Notice the old bathtub we used to plant our tomato plants in. They started out really slow and we were a little worried about them, but they’re looking pretty good now. Because Alaska’s growing season is so short we are forced to buy started tomato plants. They’re pretty expensive too, which causes Becky to yearn for her own little greenhouse so she can start her own plants. I probably need to be thinking about that little project.
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Finally, here’s my potatoes, planted in a little spot near my studio, and young raspberry plants, too. Initially I had a borrowed tiller to cultivate them, but I had to give it back. Now it looks like I’ll have to crawl around in the dirt for awhile to get rid of all that chickweed. There are forty potato plants here. I’m hoping for a dozen potatoes from each plant so we can share them with our children and grandchildren.
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