Maybe you think, like I did, that the only way you can have a garden is if you have appropriate yard space. Let me put that myth to rest. Container gardens are very easy to maintain with even the tiniest bit of patio space, provided you have a modicum of sunlight.
Maybe you also think, like I did, that container gardens are too expensive to set up. Well, it can be, but let's discuss some alternatives.
First, much of what you'll use are one-time expenses. The containers, the soil, and the plant supports are all re-usable. Second, if you learn how to collect seeds from your produce the first year, you don't have to purchase seeds or seedlings for subsequent years. Third, think outside the box. You don't have to purchase the $10 planters from the hardware store for each plant. A friend wrote to me this week and said she was able to pick up several used five-gallon food-grade buckets from local bakeries for free, which she'll use to start her first container garden this year. If you can find the right kind of plastic, you can do what we did and use mop buckets from the dollar store; the handles are convenient for rearranging your garden as it grows.
If you are using nontraditional containers, you will need to make a few alterations. For our buckets, we drilled about five 1/4" holes in the bottom of each for drainage, poured about 1-2" of coarse gravel in the bottom of each, and then filled the remainder with potting soil.
Here is our garden last year on March 31st:
Here is our garden at the end of April:
...and here it is toward the end of May:
We particularly fell in love with the buttercrunch lettuce last year, so toward the end of the season, we allowed a few of the plants to bolt in order to collect the seeds. It took maybe a half hour to sit down and break apart the blossoms at the kitchen table in order to put aside about 300 seeds (200 for us and 100 for friends). I sent some off last autumn to a friend who has a year-round greenhouse and she's been enjoying her lettuce all winter. The great thing about this variety of lettuce is that you can harvest individual leaves as they mature, and leave the centers to continue growing.
This is the point of this post: If you want to start plants from seeds, now is the time to prepare.
First, check out when your last anticipated frost will be by entering your ZIP code HERE.
Next, determine how far ahead of transplanting you can begin seedlings indoors. For our lettuce, it's ideal to begin 4-6 weeks ahead of the last frost in order to harvest as early as possible. Ours are just starting to sprout:
Bell pepper seeds started in left column and lettuce in the right column
For what it's worth, though, some plants are particularly hardy. Here is our strawberry plant today, which survived winter:
...and here is a 'volunteer' lettuce plant, which planted itself from a stray seed and also survived all winter:
What are you planning to grow at home this year?
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