The Plant and Garden thread!

ProDarwin said:

Anyway, here is the ultimate lazy/engineer garden solution IMO.  All the work is in the inital setup.  After that its just a matter of giving it water a couple times a year, and topping off dirt in the spring.  In the winter it can double as an open compost bin.  Rough math was this holds something like 40-50 gallons in the reservoir.  It will naturally refill in heavy rains/winter also.  Depending on the plants you put in them, it may never require manual watering (peppers for example).  But some plants draw mega water like tomatoes & watermelon.

So do they work by trapping water inside the plastic containers?  I'm interested, but confused.

In reply to GIRTHQUAKE :

Yes.  The containers keep that space from filling with soil and allow it to fill with water.  There is an overflow drain approximately even with the top of the containers so the whole planter can't flood.  The PVC sticking out the top is a direct feed down into the containers to speed up refilling.  Here's a random google diagram of one.  Some places really overcomplicate these... its hard to mess them up.

In reply to ProDarwin :

So do you just then, have like an anti-weed fabric over the plastic containers to keep the plant roots from growing down into them? 

GIRTHQUAKE said:

In reply to ProDarwin :

So do you just then, have like an anti-weed fabric over the plastic containers to keep the plant roots from growing down into them? 

I didn't put one in.  Havent run into any issues yet, but the first one I built (in a bucket) has only gone 3 seasons or so.  I can't imagine its an issue for annuals.  For more permanent plants I might consider something like that.  I thought the roots would just grow down into the "wicking" area of the soil (void between the containers) and there would not be much reason to grow into the containers.  Who knows though.

In reply to ProDarwin :

So then you still just fill them fulla dirt even with them open like that? How does it form that capillary water & reservoir?

Maybe I'm not explaining it well.  The containers have no dirt in them.  All the areas around them get packed with dirt, which carries the water up into the rest of the bed with capillary action.

Edit:  maybe this will clear it up a little:  all the containers are perforated with small holes.  This allows water to flow in/out but keeps dirt out.  I use a tiny soldering iron tip, but a small drill bit works almost as well.

It's August. Let's see more of your crop yields and anything you've made from them (pickles, relish, etc.). I don't grow veggies, so this is all I have ...

Two Meyer lemons that haven't turned yellow yet:

And a couple figs on my first-year fig tree:

We have been struggling to keep up with the canning, preserving and eating of what is coming out of our garden.  We are absolutely drowning in tomatoes, corn and squash.  We have put up a couple dozen jars and bags of sweet corn, 45 jars of pickles and about a dozen quarts of crushed tomatoes.

20 dozen ears of sweet corn. I gave away 6 dozen of this batch, we have 3 dozen still in the fridge and preserved the rest.

First home grown watermelons. We are going to try seedless next year.

This is our tomato haul for the last 4 days not including cherry/grape tomatoes.

We have been eating roast broccoli, squash and okra, all from the garden, almost every night for the last week or so.

In reply to RacetruckRon :

Very impressive!

WOW - I was feeling pretty proud of my tomato and pepper covered countertops but you win sir.  Beautiful heirloom tomatoes!

We have started our home garden this year, hopefully I am able to keep the plants alive, my goal is to start planing stuff that not only looks nice but produces food. My uncle gave us a few tomato plants to start so we relocated some decorative grass and made a garden bed. 

We also started a few herbs in planters they will most likely outgrow along with our grape vine that will hopefully produce a few pieces of fruit this year. 

Update, all our herbs have started growing and our grapes have come back for the season. The tomatoes have not produced yet but we have a few flowers starting on one of our plants. The ornamental peppers are happy and I think I am going to harvest some to pickle. I also started some mint which I am excited to have to mix into some beverages.  

The herbs were starting to outgrow their containers and luckily I found a raised bed for only $40. I have been wanting one for a while and the timing and price couldn't have worked out better. 

Whats growing on? 
i have a bunch of sugar cane cuttings sprouting, 
passionfruit coming in nice, avocados and persimmons holding fruit and a nice big rack of "ice cream" bananas. 

In reply to TJL (Forum Supporter) :

I keep saying I'm going to plant some bananas but then I see how expensive the plants are at the store and walk away. One day I'll have some... 

I have an enormous amount of weeding to do this weekend before I post any garden pictures. It rained all last week while we were out of town and now the grass and weeds are taller than my sweet corn. 

Thanks to Tim and Marjorie I now have a banana tree in the yard. Along with it we planted some pumpkin seeds to see how they do in this part of the yard, hopefully come fall we will have a nice pumpkin patch.

We've had a 20x40 garden for several years.  Does pretty good some years, bad others.  Had big issues with weeds last year, so we needed mulch.  Got with a neighbor (who is an arborist) and asked to buy some mulch.  "Just get whatever you want."  6-8 truck loads later, the garden is covered, along with our small garden in the back and around some trees and flowers.  

Big garden looks MUCH better already.  We had quite a few volunteer tomatoes, so we caged them before they got too big.  Already getting some good Romas going.  

Going to set up an automatic sprinkler system so we can keep it all watered while we are on vacay next week.  

In reply to Sarah Young :

Thank you!  Always wondered what these were called.

In reply to 914Driver :

Careful with pencil cactus. The sap can really burn your skin good.