Most of you who come here often know that the Farrells are in transit, currently in a rented house while waiting to buy a new home. To say the process is stressful is an understatement. It’s also meant giving up my allotment plots, so I’ve been very glad to be able to potter about with some container growing.
Because it is true what they say: gardening is good for both mind and body, even in a scaled-down version.
The container approach also proves you can grow fresh vegetables with a fairly small amount of space or physical effort (if these happen to be issues) and any container will do, including small pots which are particularly useful for growing successional salad stuff.
But first, the big pot planting.
With a further move on the horizon, I did have a very strong motive for resorting to container growing. If a pot is still cropping (or about to crop) when moving day arrives, it will be coming with us. To that end, the yellow courgette plant is in a builders’ two-handled bucket for easier transportation.
Then I was much perturbed about missing our usual tomato crop. To cover eventualities – as in just in case we’re lingering in Broseley longer than expected, I’ve planted a couple of cherry tomato plants in the garden border – Sungold and Piccolo, but I’ve also put some in large flower pots, two plants to a pot. And I’ve grown Tumbling Tom, which have been bred to dangle from hanging baskets and so don’t need staking. Again, I have these in transportable builders’ buckets, and despite the ongoing gales, they are growing well with masses of flowers, and showing the first signs of fruiting.
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I do have lots of big clay pot, but realizing they would be too heavy and cumbersome to move when filled with compost and plants, I decided to use old compost bags (added drain holes in the bottom), with the tops rolled back to make a firm and grabble edge, and then popped into a clay pot for stability. These have proved excellent for growing successional crops of rocket and spinach. The latter usually bolts quickly in summer weather (not that we’ve had that since our few hot days in June; it’s more like early autumn), but growing it for baby leaf for salads or wilting into casseroles and curries seems to work just fine. It also grows very quickly.
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Lettuce can be sown all season, and best done anyway in small-pot, successional sowings. Some I’ve left unthinned, and just cropped the leaves; others I’ve thinned and planted out in compost bags to grow into proper lettuce.
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For the last few years I’ve tended to grow carrots in buckets, especially late summer sowings which provide a crop for winter eating. This year I sowed some back in April, and now have a big bucket of carrots seedlings, some of them just big enough to pull. We ate this little bunch steamed with broccoli and tahini lemon sauce.
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And now a big shout-out for pea sprouts. This is a first for me, though why I’ve not thought of it before I really don’t know. I was able to use up all my old pea seeds too. Again, these can be grown in a series of 5 inch flower pots, sown successionally, or in standard seed trays (a layer of compost in the bottom, peas popped across the whole surface about an inch apart or a bit closer, and an inch of compost on top).
This tray has been recently cut i.e. when the stems are about 4 inches long. If the tray is kept well watered, then there will be further crops, maybe 2 or 3 more cuttings. We use the sprouts both in salads and for cooking.
Other potted crops include spring onions, leeks, pot marigolds and nasturtiums (for salads and prettiness), parsley, basil, dill, mint, coriander and oregano. I also have a bucket of climbing Violette French beans, and another of borlotti beans. I’m not sure how they’ll work out. The French beans have been beaten up by the winds (there has been no ‘hottest ever’ global warming in Broseley only shivering) but they are at least beginning to flower.
So there you have it: the Farrells’ moveable feast, and in the interim, the makings of a green salad to accompany every supper for the last couple of months. The exercise is making me re-think my gardening practice. The biggest advantage (apart from the moveability) is that container growing seems to help focus the mind on small, successional sowings, something I rarely seemed to manage on the allotment. You do need to keep an eye on the watering however. Wind, in particular, can dry out pots very quickly.
And now for some views of the back-door veggie plot:
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I hope this might have enthused some of you to get potting. You can’t beat a freshly plucked green salad.
I’m interested in your managing to grow courgettes in containers. This has never worked for me. But what a magnificent effort all round!
Have you tried the yellow variety. They seem rather more containable somehow.
That’s worth a thought. Thanks.
Wow, Tish. Your thumbs must both be the greenest color of green possible!! I think this might be the sort of gardening I need to do here, just not in the same seasons. Right now, with another week of temperatures well over 110F, we have to consider this our winter and not plant. The soil here is also very different. Perhaps later in the year I’ll tap you for ideas as I’d so love fresh produce from my own garden/buckets! 😉
Do come back to this later in the year, Janet. Happy to have my brain tapped 🙂
I forget to mention that Emily is disappointed you moved as she considers Much Wenlock the coolest sounding place she’s ever heard of!
Are you planning on buying in Broseley or moving further afield?
Your container garden is great. Love these yellow zucchini.
We’re hopefully moving to Bishops Castle on the Shropshire – Wales border. But I’m sorry Emily is disappointed about us foresaking Wenlock 🙂 BC is a pretty quirky sort of a place (I’ve done some posts on it in the past) so there will be lots to post about some day (hopefully) soon.
I can’t wait to hear about BC and all the quirkiness there! Will be nice for the journeying y’all like to do in the winter to Wales, if I’ve got that right. Glad for your move and hope you can manage to keep the stress levels down. The gardening must help. Love this post!
Hello, Bill. Happy to find you in my doorstep ‘plot’. And your comment is spot on with the winter Wales trips – we will indeed be closer. Thanks, too, for the de-stressing good wishes. It’s been a long 2 years from the time when started to think about leaving Wenlock. But, hey, BC here we come!
I think it’s good to move on when the time comes and to have the courage to do so. I can’t wait to see what’s next in store for you two! Thanks for the kind note and enjoy the rest of your Sunday Tish!
Happy days, Bill. It’s the best we can have and hope for when all is said and done 🙂
Amen to that my friend! Happy days indeed. Salad days still, even!
I shall tell my daughter.
I’m sure she will get over her disappointment.
🙂
Wow what an inspiration. Green fingers or what. A lovely fresh green salad sounds just the job!
Thank you, Clive. Lovely to hear from you 🙂
This is wow, Tish.
Cheers, Mak. Was thinking about you earlier. Hope you’re OK.
I am well, thank you
Good to hear 🙂
Lovely garden.
Thanks, Sherry.
Oh you are going well. Being used to fresh vegies makes it really hard to not grow them some how some where. A little dirt…a seed or two and you have supper waiting.. But..then again some know how to grow without dirt. I haven’t yet but you never know…might give it a try someday.
Yes, that’s a thought – growing without soil. Hydroponics? It’s quite a system once you can master it.
So many lovely veggies!
Many thanks 🙂
My goodness! If it wasn’t apparent before, it certainly is now, that you have the gift for growing! Amazing that you Ivan coax these plants in containers!
Thanks, Ju-Lyn. I think the knack is growing stuff that is not too challenging, and in small quantities. Also keeping an eye on the watering. If one sowing fails, then it can be quickly replaced with something else, and it’s not like the allotment where some serious digging was usually involved when that happened 🙂
Loving Husband has tried for years to grow in pots in our balcony garden, but we have seriously limited success. Again, you have the magic!
I’m guessing your climate might be the challenge for balcony veggie cultivation, and not Loving Husband’s growing attempts. Restricted air circulation around the plants and high humidity, both attractive to bugs and diseases? Just a thought.
You are likely right. And many of our plants wilt because the sun is too strong
To be honest, I’m more of a slash and burn gardener, so wasn’t intending to read everything you wrote this time. But it was all inspirational – and interesting. The link will be passed to Mrs B, who is a well-known unconscious plant killer.
‘Slash and burn gardener’ … that made me smile, Mike. As I do have a bit of slash and burn in my gardening pedigree. i.e. I’m not a very careful gardener. And actually a haphazard approach can often work too. Good luck to Mrs. B 🙂
You really do have the greenest of thumbs Tish. My attempts at edible crops have been woefully hit and miss. Have you found somewhere in BC then? I rather like that town.
We have indeed found a house in BC. Just going through the excruciatingly drawn out buying process. We think the end of it is in sight though. Fingers crossed.
Congratulations! And I know all too well about that process, excruciatingly slooow… 🤞
Thanks, Jude. I don’t know why it takes so long to reach the point of exchanging contracts when none of us involved had chains to contend with. I think the lawyers and searchers must be working from home!
My son is going through it too, taking months instead of weeks and then the purchasers wanted some things fixing when he’d already dropped the price to compensate for work to be done. It’s all very stressful.
Gosh. I do feel for him. It’s horrid when negotiations start feeling unfair as well as being stressful.
I hate coming here, Tish, because your industry always puts me to shame. I don’t think I ever saw more loved and happy produce on a market stall. Good luck with the move, darlin, whenever it happens. I know you’ll make the most of the interim time, and de-stress in the garden.
Thank you, lovely Jo. We’re sort of hanging on by skin of teeth etc. As I said to Jude, the end is in sight 🙂
🤗💚
Hope you manage to buy your dream house soon
Many thanks for that cheering comment 🙂
Amazing what you can achieve in such a small space! Your veggies look so healthy too, very happy in their different containers 🙂
I’m wondering if our very windy house has something to do with the veggies healthy looks. All potential bugs are being blown away 🙂
You have sowed a bounty crop of vegetables, which is impressive given that you’re growing in pots.
It’s surprised me too, Jennie 🙂
😀
Well, I’m most impressed, Tish,,you have the greenest fingers of aa gone I know! All the very best for that hoped for BC move
Many thanks for those good wishes, Sue.
Pleasure!
A veggie patch is a veggie patch is a veggie patch, no matter where it is or what it looks like. 😀
Absolutely, Widders.
WordPress bumped you off my list and I can’t seem to find a way to get you back on it.
I’m a huge fan of container gardening. The biggest reason around here is protecting them from all the hungry creatures. Well, not from the squirrels and birds who think our deck is a portable feast, flowers and all, but at least from the skunks and deer.
I’m glad you are managing to find ways to deal differently with family patterns. You give me hope.
Sorry you got bumped off, Marilyn. Not sure why you can’t resubscribe but then much about WP confounds me.
And yes protecting stuff from critters – so much easier to do with small containers than out in the open. And if one pot fails for whatever reason, it’s not a whole lot of pain to try again.
I’m touched that my post gives you some hopefulness. We all need good doses at regular intervals. Tx
Apparently I had to go to my blog list and turn you off, then turn you on again. Like rebooting the computer.
The weather here has been kind of awful. Everywhere. If you aren’t flooding, you’re burning up. We seem to be doing both on alternate days. Anyone might think we’re having a climate problem.
Happy you got that sorted. Here in Shropshire our weather is coolish with rain between cloudy sunshine. It’s been the pattern for July and we seem to be stuck with it for a while, due to the Jet Stream which has gone into one if its big meanders. Cool air sucked down from the Arctic into northen Europe and hot air drawn up from Africa into the Med. Then there’s an El Nino event kicking in which apparently raises temps in certain quarters. And I gather that big globe in the sky is doing some active sun spot stuff too. So many planetary agendas!
For sure your post has inspired me, I’ve started with the container growing too but not to the extent that you describe here Tish, wonderful inspiration and yes even in a small way I’m finding the container growing easier and a thing for my future. The overgrown beds I’m starting to use for shrubs and perennials which don’t need too much care except of some pruning and the results are stunning too. I found what you said about the pea shoots very encouraging and will try! 🙂
So happy to spur you on, Agnes. The carrots are proving rather good. Also the purple french beans have loads of little pods. Leeks are filling out too.
I’ve never tried carrots and perhaps will do that next season, it seems so simple to do it in a container. I’ve still got to plant out some leeks, inbetween the showers that will have to be it seems! 🙂
You can still sow carrots (e.g. Nantes varieties) in containers now and into September. They won’t necessarily grow very big. But if you have a greenhouse or similar, the carrot pots can then be kept frost free and harvested into the winter.