I planted two large pots of carrots this year - one is the Short 'n Sweet variety, which is often times used for baby carrots. They grow shorter and sweeter than the average carrot variety. The other pot has heirloom rainbow carrots.

Last year I tried growing them, but we got a lot of rain shortly after I planted them. That caused the seeds to all run to the edge of the pots, which led to very few growing. This year the seeds were better established before we ended up with a bunch of rain.

Over the last week or so, little plants have slowly been emerging. I can't wait to have fresh carrots later this year.

So it's that time again - time to move the tomato plants from the little seedling cells into seedling pots. I'm especially careful when doing this since I only minimally thin the tomatoes - I only remove the ones that are significantly smaller than the rest. For any of the other cells, I very carefully separate each tomato plant and transplant them each separately into larger pots. It's rare that I lose one when I do that, but it happens occasionally. I still end up with way more plants doing this than if I were to only select one per cell. But it also means that I end up with a lot of tomatoes - about 7 trays worth this time.

The key is being very, very careful with the roots. Massage the ball of dirt and roots gently and then carefully separate each tomato by holding the plant and gently wiggling it away from the others. Then you can plant each one of them. You might break a few plants when doing this, but once you get the hang of it you'll end up with more plants than if you saved one per cell.

When I planted the Contender Beans, I knew that they were considered "early" beans. I didn't realize just how early they meant. They started growing beans while still in the house. So if you're looking for green beans that start growing very early, Contender is a very good choice. Just in the past two days I've already picked a few beans and they've just been growing in small seedling pots. Imagine what they'll do in big pots or in the ground.

Tomatoes and peppers are hot weather plants. They really prefer it when the temperatures are warm. So that means if it's not warm where you're growing, it's going to take longer for them to germinate and grow. That means it is best to help them stay warm and their soil moist if you want them to do well.

These plants are some of the few that I do use the clear tray covers on when they are germinating. The lights above them help them to stay nice and warm inside the trays, which helps them to grow. But I've found that it is best if you do this with seedling trays that are not made of materials like peat or coconut, as those mold very quickly. I've never been successful with those kinds of pots under the clear covers. As long as they don't get over-watered, I've not had an issue with the traditional plastic seed cells and regular seedling soil. But if you're using other kinds of pots or material to grow the seeds in, you may run into issues.

So the shelf greenhouse I originally bought had some issues, such as the zipper being broken. Then I found out some of the pieces that snap together had cracks in them. As such, I took it back to the store to exchange it. They were out of what I wanted, but offere me the larger greenhouse at a discount. I didn't think that was going to be an option, but my complex was pretty cool about it and said I could indeed have it. So now I have a nice walk-in greenhouse available on my patio.

It happens to us all - you get nice weather for a while and you put your seedlings out. Then the worst news comes out - you're going to have a cold snap. How do you protect your plants?

There are a number of ways you can do this, including:

• Bringing them indoors or under cover (like under a covered patio or carport)
• Using a floating row cover
• Using a portable greenhouse
• Using hoops

So what should you choose? Below is some information on each option.

Well, I found that I really liked the other light I purchased better, so I packed up all the lights that I had purchased and returned them. When I bought them they weren't what I had wanted in the first place, and the way I had them hooked up made it difficult for me to water plants, move them around, etc. They'd said if they didn't work out I could bring them back within 30 days and that's exactly what I did. Now I have the new lights hooked up and I hope these are going to work better for me. It's much easier dealing with one light, two cords, and two chains on each shelf than two lights, two cords, and four chains. Ended up saving about $100 this way.

So Friday I went out to buy a new set of lights for the third shelf since my eggplant had popped up and I didn't want it to get too "leggy". Went to my usual store and they only had one light (I needed two). They said they might have more in later in the day, but didn't know. Didn't even offer to put one aside or order one. I bought what they had and then ran around town trying to find another. No such luck.

So I went to Home Depot to see what they had. Couldn't find any 4' T5 lights that plug in, but did find some T8 ones. They were just under $18. Then a set of two daylight bulbs for the fixture was like $9. So for less than $27 I got a light that actually works better than the T5 ones I bought previously. They're brighter and are longer (even though all of them are supposed to be 4'). So I think I am going to see about taking these other ones back and replacing them. I haven't been entirely happy with them, but they were what I could find. For the $40+ I spent on each one, I would expect more.

A lot of people want to grow their own vegetables, fruit, and herbs, but don't know where to start. It's taken me several years, but I've gotten pretty good at it. I continue to improve and learn from others and will be even better once I'm in a house where I can plant in the ground and have more room to work.

For the purpose of my blog, I'm talking about fruits and veggies in the culinary sense, not biologically. So cucumbers, squash, greens, peppers, etc = veggies. Tomatoes and strawberries = fruit.

I grow plenty of vegetables and some herbs, but very little fruit. That's because most fruits seem to grow on bushes, vines, or trees, and I can't have any of those in my container garden. But once I get into a house and have land, I am looking forward to growing a lot more fruit. When it comes to herbs, I just grow the things I use often, like basil, rosemary, cilantro, and chives. I also grow some mint to help attract pollinators and such.

Well, with the exception of cucumbers I think I'm just about done planting seeds for this season. I've done a few batches of peppers, tomatoes, squash, and eggplant, which should be enough to meet my needs and have plenty left over to sell. Every year I am too early with my cucumbers, which means my first batch dies because it is too cold outside when I move them outdoors. So this year I am purposefully waiting a few extra weeks before I start the seeds. Since I don't have any room inside for them, I can't be tempted to start them yet. I have a bunch more peas, beans, greens, and herbs to move outside, and once I do that I'll have room for the cucumbers. 

Here's some photos of my tomatoes and squash:

I've been wanting to do some outdoor gardening, but with my back injury it makes it difficult. Today I finally was able to make it out there and do some gardening. I put some of my window boxes back out into the yard, cleared out dead leaves, and planted a whole bunch of plants.

I now have peas, beans, lettuce, cabbage, broccoli, spinach, kale, and bok choi growing outside in my garden.

Since the weather is getting nice outside, and my pea plants are getting big, it's time for them to go outside to get them hardened off. This will help them to get used to the cooler temperatures outside so that they are shocked by the colder dirt in the ground (or in the pots). They'll go outside for a part of the day each day until they're ready to be left outside entirely.

Thus far I have 55 plants outside. I'll be keeping some for myself, but the rest will be up for sale. Those are:

Sugar Snap: 10 plants 8 plants (2 ppu)

Oregon Giant (large podded snow pea w/ sweet peas): 17 plants

Burpeeana Early (3" pods with 8-10 sweet peas; prolific and early): 12 plants

Dwarf Grey Sugar (heirloom edible pod snow pea): 10 plants

Cascadia (sweet snap pea that grows on a short plant): 6 plants

These are $2/each and come in a ~3.25" pot.

I was able to do some outdoor planting today, as the weather was really nice today. We were supposed to have gotten heavy rain yesterday, but it never really came. As such, my planters were damp, but not soaked. That meant I could finally get my tulips and hyacinth in the ground. My husband is really bad about buying anything for me for holidays and such, so I picked up some plants at the store instead. 

Between the weather and my injury I haven't been able to work outside like I normally do. My poor daffodil pot had gotten knocked over, spilling most of the dirt. But sure enough it returned and I have a couple flowers on it, even though it's in maybe 3" of dirt. I added more to it today, so now it doesn't look quite so sad.

I also pulled two deep containers onto the patio, sprinkled carrot seeds (one a rainbow mix, the other some short 'n sweet), and covered them up with more soil. They're under the patio so I can better protect them from any hard rain or temps, but they can still get sun once they pop up.

Hoping to later this week go out and pull up any dead plants and start getting things organized for planting. Getting very excited about spring!

Here are some great resources for finding out when to plant things in Oregon. If you live in another state, do a Google search, as there are likely similar resources available for your state. For here I just Googled this: oregon vegetable planting calendar

Oregon gardening calendar

Oregon vegetable planting calendar

Here's the calendar for where I live (Zone 8)

Over the last few years, I've learned a lot about growing vegetable, herb, and flower starts indoors. The first few years I just put them under my dining room light and a lamp and wondered why they were so spindly and weak looking. Why they often times died. Then I realized that they must not be getting enough light.

We have a grow store nearby that sells lighting, plant food, light stands, trays, and more for growing plants indoors. A good amount of it is targeted to marijuana growing (which is legal in my state), but is also excellent for growing your seedlings indoors.

Lighting setup

I went in and talked to an employee and explained what I was doing. They sold me a Hydrofarm 4' light that has 6 tubes as well as a 4' Jump Start stand that can hold the light. This pretty much covers my entire dining room table, even when I have in the leaf. I absolutely love this light. It is amazing the difference between when I was just growing them under a lamp and when I got a real grow light. The plant grow stronger, bigger, and faster than under just a plain old light.

This will be the third growing season that I've used the lamp and stand. They've served me well. And when we had an issue with some of the connectors breaking on the stand, Jump Start sent me new ones at no charge. Excellent company and I love their products. Thus far I have not had to replace any of the bulbs and I have my light on about 12 hours a day for a few months. I haven't noticed much of an increase in our electricity from them, either.

This year I decided to increase the amount of seedlings I can grow at a time, so I purchased a heavy duty shelf at Home Depot, some chains and s-biners to hang the lights, and some more 4' grow lights. I originally planned to do one light per shelf for 3 of the shelves, so I bought three lights. But after hanging them, I realized that I wasn't getting quite as much light as I might like when the lights were down low, so I decided two lights per shelf might be best. So I went ahead and set it up that way. I currently have two shelves covered and will be purchasing two more sets to do a third shelf. The other two shelves are being used for storage, such as seeding soil, trays, tray lids, and pots.

Well, seeing as we've been having warmer than usual temps in our area, and the long-term forecast seems to show the same, local weather forecasters are saying that it looks like winter is indeed behind us. That means it is time to get your gardens ready for the first seedlings of the spring season! This can include carrots, onions, peas, beans, greens, herbs, broccoli, and more!

I already have a lot of these going and am working hard to get them transplanted to larger containers so they have even more room to grow. Hopefully tomorrow I can get a count of how many of each of the items I have growing. I've already started a second batch of peas and beans and picked up some more seeds at the store since I'd run out. I also ordered some scarlet runner beans, as I had a request for them. Apparently they are quite pretty when in bloom.

I already have dibs on many of the peas and beans and need to find out how many more people want them. This way I can ensure that I have enough growing. Thankfully I have very good luck with peas and beans (near 100% germination rates), so the key is to get enough growing so that they are ready in time.

So if you want peas, beans, greens (various lettuces, spinch, kale, broccoli, various cabbages), or herbs, you should let me know ASAP so that I have enough growing for everyone. I know that I do have a lot of the Little Gems growing, which are a nice sized Romaine Lettuce. One head is often times just the right size for a meal. These have been my favorite of all the Romaine varieties I've tried. I probably have at least a couple dozen of these going right now, maybe more. I've got to finish transplanting and separating them so I can get an accurate count. Most people grow at least several of these at a time since they don't need a lot of room.

Well, some of the items are growing so well that I am going to have to transplant them into bigger pots soon. That's especially true of some of the pease, beans, and lettuce. They're just all growing so fast. The peas are about ready to grab onto the lights.

Well, I couldn't sleep last night, so I figured I'd use the time to transplant some of the bigger plants over to pots that were of a larger size. These ones are about 2.5x2.5, which is nearly double the space they had in the containers they were in. Not only that, but when it comes to greens I have a very hard time putting just one seed in each pot because the seeds are so tiny. As such, the baby choi and romaine lettuce I transplanted often times had 3-5 plants growing in a single slot. I carefully separated them and put each into its own pot, which will allow them to grow much faster.

Well, thus far my seedlings are doing quite well. Got a lot of growth over this past weekend. Loving the new timer I got for the grow light, as now I don't have to remember to turn them on and off - it does that for me. Certainly helps ensure that the lights are on for the right amount of time. 

So this year I decided to put in a big upgrade to my seedling growing setup. I've been very successful ever since I added a nice big grow light over my seedlings. That led to a lot more extra seedlings, which meant a good amount of sales of my plants. Last year was a very good year, which meant some money left over after paying for all the expenses related to growing the plants. As such, I decided to put that towards an upgrade in my system.

It's amazing sometimes with plants how much growth you can get in just a day or so. I've highlighted some growth here that happened just within a day. I circled the corresponding cells since I had to flip around the tray so that those with growth would be closest to the light.

Sorry I haven't added anything to the site in many months. Thanks to the car accident last year, I've been on light duty and haven't been able to do many of the things I enjoy. My time at the computer is limited, which means I haven't been able to do any work on this site in quite some time. I ended up having to take it offline because the software was outdated and I didn't have the time to work on my personal projects.

Last year's garden wasn't as successful as it could have been since I couldn't work in it like I usually do. Many of my vegetables were left on the plant too long, so they ended up bug bitten, split, etc. I was so disappointed since I was really hopeful for my garden after all the planning I put into it. But if you can't physically do the work on it, it's hard for it to do as well as it could. We still ended up with a more than 50 lbs of vegetables, but we could have had a LOT more. I probably threw away at least that much in vegetables that would have been good had they been picked a few days earlier.

I took some time this weekend to get things up and going again so that I can start uploading photos and writing about this year's garden. It is going to be interesting to see how things go, as I can't bend, stretch, or do repetitive motions. That can make gardening difficult. So not only will I be talking about limitations of growing in containers, but also physical limitations as well.

You can view an assortment of photos that I just uploaded of last year's garden here.

Hopefully this year's garden will be fabulous. :D

P.S. Those Big Mama Tomatoes are wonderful! Turns out they're a large paste tomato, which is good for sauces. I grew one plant and it just about took over my garden. It was so big it snapped multiple stakes, a cage, etc. It alone probably produced several dozen pounds of tomatoes.

Welcome to my blog on container gardening. I live in an apartment and as such don't have the option to plant anything in the ground. As such, I gave dozens and dozens of containers surrounding my patio filled with herbs, vegetables, fruits, and flowers.

This last year everything started out good, but then I was in a car accident in mid-April and have been unable to do much by the way of bending, stretching, etc. That made it hard to do as much with my garden as I wanted last year. 

I started out with just a few planters of strawberries around my garden. Then I added a few hanging baskets of flowers for our daughter. Each year I've expanded and expanded my garden. I've been buying bigger and bigger containers and adding new plants. I've found some things that have worked well for me - like the Asian finger eggplant that produced probably 100 eggplants - and things that haven't - my rapini never grew and it's just too cold for melons to do well.

I hope to share what I've learned thus far, tips, and more through this blog. I also hope to hear from you about what has worked for you.

Be sure to check out the photo galleries! Lots of photos there showing what I'm growing, how the plants are doing and more!

The other night I couldn't sleep, so I figured I could use the time to get my seedlings started. I had them in the dirt by about 5 a.m. on Thursday, January 28th. I planted:

Well, it's been several weeks since I've posted anything. First I was sick with a sinus infection and then just as I got better I was in a car accident. Still healing, but it's certainly gotten in the way of gardening on numerous occasions. Thankfully my sister has been here to help.