This was the inside of my house a few weeks ago. The very beginnings of my container garden. I was so excited. Would you believe the very day after I planted everything, we had 2 inches or so of SNOW?
Yes, I live in the land of 80-something frost free days all year. That is why container gardening is so wonderful here - there are no worries about frost or snow. I just haul everything inside.
I must admit, though, that the tomatoes were a tad heavy.
Especially with the cozy-coats. Filled with water.
Jadyn, my 6 year old, helped me plant everything. We started with 2 tomato plants - 'ultra girl' and 'sweet millions'. The cherry tomato plant is Jadyn's choice and Shayda (my 8 year old) picked out the lettuce- both were bought at the local farmer's market. Here's what one of the plants looked like about 2 weeks ago:
And this is what they look like now:
You can see we added a third tomato plant - it's called 'sub-arctic plenty' and it is probably a perfect plant for our environment. It's more of a 'bush' type so probably won't get as big as the other 2. We also bought a 'tiny tim' cherry tomato plant, you can probably spot it in the other pics. It's so mini, yet it's already flowering.
Here you can see our very first tomato babies! Jadyn was so excited, and happy her plant is the first! lol. They all have flowers right now though.
The next 2 photos show the progression of our lettuce in about 2 weeks:
It's hard to see (Thanks to the shadows) but in the second one you can see some spinach (in the top container) and romaine (in the bottom one) beginning to grow too. I already harvested a few of the bottom lettuce leaves that had tip burn and cut off the brown parts and used them in a salad. So we're already eating from our 'garden'. lol.
And here are some more plants. I have pickling cukes in the round 'terracotta' pots, zucchini in the square pots, and a mix of romaine and spinach in the ice cream pails (hey, I was short of pots, lol!). The poor spinach today was turned upside down by the dog on the deck, so only one seedling remains. I've re-seeded the pot. *sigh*. Our 2-year old golden/lab/mutt mix would give Marley a run for his money. Anyday.
I also purchased a pepper plant. It seems to be doing okay, despite the cool temps. We get tons of sunlight this far up north, so that seems to help. WE also are attempting to grow radishes in the yogurt containers, lol! We'll see how that works out. The pansies in the itty bitty pots are struggling, but aforementioned dog is to blame for that. Those itty bitty yogurt pots are tipped over every other day, I'm sure.
I'm still debating over whether or not I should get more tomatoes. I'd also like to get one more sweet pepper plant and one hot pepper plant. I SO want to make my own salsa. I do have cilantro growing, but it's pretty slow going so far.
And, once again, tonight, I will have to cover up the plants because of possible frost. 4 days past our frost free date. This spring has been awful and cold and LATE. I hope summer is better!
