Last time I planted green peppers, I ended up with one, tiny, sad, little pepper that I couldn't even eat. I think the spot was too shady for them. They need full sun. Which I don't have. So I didn't go hog-wild with the pepper plants - I only bought two. HAD to have the Poblano! I eat tons of Mexican food and love stuffed pablano peppers. I'm the only one in the house that will eat them, but so be it. I also picked up a sweet bell pepper plant, and 4 tiny tomato plants. LOTS of different tomato plants to choose from so I went with the Better Boy variety as they are supposed to continuously produce fruit until the first frost:
I've had really good luck with sowing herb seeds outside, so I picked up some sweet basil and cilantro (again, very big in Mexican dishes):
I also picked up a new hose, a hose hanger, a hose sprayer, and some chicken wire (to keep the squirrels out). By the time I got home and unloaded the car and got started, it was 11AM. Time to prepare the pots since all of these things will be container plants. For the why on that, check out older posts. Thanks for the giant yellow planter, Mom!! LOVE it. :) Found some more containers in the garage. Didn't have to buy any new ones. Phew.
Turns out this is the hardest part of gardening. Preparing the pots. I had forgotten. Since my dirt is in HUGE bags in the wheelbarrow, I had to fill up a bucket and drag the dirt up the stairs to the pots. Took a long time. Erik kept me company:
After I got the pots filled, I planned out what I would plant where:
By now it's been a couple of hours and I'm getting pretty tired. I haven't planted yet and I haven't begun maintenance on the plants I'd planted before, like my onions:
...or my lettuce:
But I keep going and eventually get everything planted. At this point, I notice that I've got four tomato plants in that large yellow planter and they're supposed to be spaced at least 18" apart. So I decide to dig two up and plant them along the fence (where those Cannas bulbs were):
I figure they've got a shot there. Although it's a semi-shady spot, a large cherry tomato plant did really well there a few years ago. Worth a try! It'll actually be interesting to see which tomato plants grow better since they're the same exact plants just in different spots - one inground and another in a container. Time will tell.
Finally I was able to begin maintenance on my onions and lettuce. My onions are growing really quickly! I was surprised at how much they'd grown just a week after I had planted them. My lettuce is going a little slower. And my potatoes are still underground. Haven't sprouted at all yet - and it's been 3 weeks since I planted them. Not sure what's going on there... Anyway, I took off all the plastic bottles, put some more rocks in (mulch) and added broken-up egg shells around the lettuce containers to keep out slugs. Jim said he'd be surprised if slugs traveled that far to get to the lettuce in a container, but I'm thinking what else have they got to do??
By the way, check out Jim's fabulous job with the lawn this year. I can barely see the dirt!! When Erik started to whine later, he layed in it.
Jim's pretty sick today with a fever and a bad cold but he STILL helped me out today. He went to Ace and bought me another bag of dirt (took three 56lb bags to fill everything this year) AND he hung up my hose hanger!! What a guy!!!
By the way, our old hose was kaput. Plus I didn't like the roly-poly container holdy-thingie it was in. (Technical term.) Bugs loved to hide in there and the hose always got tangled up. So I went from this:
....to this:
However, it turned out to be just as much of a pain in the butt as the other one. And I wish I'd gotten the more expensive hose 'cause this one kinks up a lot even though it's "kink resistant." But I AM really proud of my nozzle:
Funny story too. Another gal was looking at the many hoses and nozzles at Lowes and we started talking about how confused we were with all the choices. (She got the better hose but I got the better nozzle.) I chose it because out of all the nozzles, it's box was the most empty. And now I know why. Instead of a trigger to release the water, it has a thumb switch. NO MORE TIRED HANDS! And when I was watering my plants, I really loved that I didn't have to press that trigger forever. Just flip the switch and you're good to go. So next time: I'LL GET A BETTER HOSE. But I'm keepin' my nozzle.
Here's what my deck looks like right now:
With the exception of sowing more lettuce and cilantro seeds later (and possibly onions), I'm done until I plant garlic in the fall. I'll update as the plants grow bigger. One more picture though - - of my homemade wooden fence around my non-existent potatoes. I'm pretty proud of it! I recycled branches that we trimmed at our house and from my mom's poor lilac tree. (RIP)
