Last year I tried tomatoes in the ground vs tomatoes in self-watering containers. The results were so clearly in favor of the containers that I covered over all the exposed soil in my yard with weed nets and gravel. My entire garden is now in containers.
April is pretty closeby, so rather than hearing 'starting tomatoes kinda early?' from the guys at my local garden center, I am beginning to see January and February's work pay off. I enjoy a sea-side climate in sunny Southern California.
I am already eating strawberries every few days. Some are harvested off the half dozen planted strawberries in an Earthbox, and another two or three have lifted from the small pot outside my back door. My two big strawberry pots are not yet performing — but they are growing well. One is a survivor from last year and may look a little downtrodden but seems to be springing back. I believe that with food, water and care they will likely produce all year. I let the first pot go dormant over the winter, but should have just kept feeding and watering it.
My strawberry hope is to harvest enough in one batch for ice cream. I have a lot of plants growing and it should not be too much of a stretch.
My artichoke is slowly progressing but not a lot of action yet and I have a sad looking basil.
The sunflowers may be overcrowded, but that was my daughter's choice.
Similarly, these abundant onions were planted by my daughter and then raised out of reach of our canine companions by me.
Our tomatillo plant is starting to reach for the stars. It already has. some lovely yellow blossoms but it also continuing to expand it foliage at an impressive rate, so I left the flowers alone. A good friend tells me the tomatillo should become a pretty decent sized bush and may produce for me most of the year. Research suggested I should give the tomatillo it's own Earthbox and no expect it to share.
Project Compare the Blueberries continues. Eventually I will move them a few feet apart, to frame a gate, but for now I've had these two pink lemonade blueberry bushes growing side-by-side. One is in a regular ol' pot and one is in a self-watering container packed with organic fertilizer. I do have some organic 4-3-6 berry food I will mix into the pot in a week or two — but so far they are both clearly doing well and the Earthbox plant only looks slightly bushier.
I will leave the trees out of this update, as they got a visit last week.
Hope your garden is going well, too!
