Here are the photos from my little planting party today. I also planted another Smart Pot with Dahlias and Asiatic Lilies. I apologize for the mediocre photos, I forgot my camera at home so I had to use my phone.

As you can see, I mounded the soil all the way up to the leaves.

I selected a Dahlia called ‘Carribean Fantasy’ to be planted in one of my Smart Pots. I was looking for a flower that would look nice with the ‘Rosella’s Dream’ Asiatic Lilies my brother gave me for my birthday.

This is what the dahlia tubers look like. The directions said to plant them with the pointy end up, but as you can see, there are multiple pointy ends! Hopefully I planted them correctly.

These are the lilies that my brother gave me.

]]> http://lifeonthebalcony.com/potato-planting-photos/feed/ 0 http://lifeonthebalcony.com/potato-project-growing-potatoes-in-a-container/ http://lifeonthebalcony.com/potato-project-growing-potatoes-in-a-container/#comments Fri, 12 Mar 2010 13:55:19 +0000 Fern http://lifeonthebalcony.com/?p=2931

I have more Smart Pots than just the ones I’ve set aside for the comparison study (and sent to Debra), so I’ve been looking for different things I could try. One of the things they are supposedly good for is growing potatoes. With that in mind, I bought a ‘French Fingerling’ potato seedling at the nursery, because that was the only way to get just one potato plant. All the seed potatoes were sold in bags of ten.

However, according to the Smart Pot website, you can grow 3 potato plants in a 10 gallon Smart Pot, so I need two more seedlings. Whoops. Word on the street is that Adriana has an extra seed potato, so maybe I can arrange a swap of some sort.

Here is what Smart Pot says to do to grow potatoes in one of their pots:

1. Cut seed potatoes into chunks having at least 2 eyes each. Each piece should be about 1.5-2 inches long. Allow the pieces to dry and callous over, about 2 days. Whole seed potatoes can be planted if they are small.
2. Use rich, loamy soil that is slightly acidic (the goal is a pH of 6.0).
3. Plant the seed potatoes when the soil has reached a minimum of 45 degrees F.
4. Fill the Smart Pot container about 1/3 full with a 50/50 mixture of garden soil and compost.
5. Plant one seed potato for each 3 gallons of Smart Pot container. For the #15 container, for example, plant 5 seed potatoes. For the #10 container, plant 3 or 4 seed potatoes. Place the seed potatoes evenly in the container.
6. Water the soil thoroughly. It should be moist but not soggy.
7. Soon, you will see little stems pop through the soil. Mound up more soil/compost mix, but do not to cover the leaves. The leaves need sun and air exposure.
8. As the potatoes continue growing, continue adding soil/compost mix until you reach the top of the Smart Pot container.
9. As summer ends and autumn nears, the potato leaves and stems will begin to turn yellow. Timing will vary somewhat depending on the potato variety and your temperature zone.
10. When the foliage has died back and the weather is cooler, stop all watering about 2 weeks prior to harvest. The leaves and stems will turn almost completely yellow. You are ready to harvest.

If you’re using something other than a Smart Pot, I’m sure you could still follow these instructions. I’ve heard of people using a plastic garbage bag with holes punches in the bottom. The benefit of the Smart Pot is supposed to be that the fabric sides of the pot are permeable and allows the soil to stay aerated.

Check back in a few hours. I’m going to plant my potato seedling according to these instructions this morning and I’ll post pictures when I’m done.

I had planned a post for today about ironic animal statuary. Alas, that post will have to wait for another day. Yesterday I saw a great idea for a garden mentioned on Twitter, and I just couldn’t pass up the opportunity to share it. @FromFarmToTable tweeted that she’s reinstating cocktail hour come spring and invited people to share what they’d plant in a “cocktail garden.” To me, a cocktail garden should be two fold: contain plants to be used in cocktails, and be pleasant to spend time in during cocktail drinking hours.

Luckily pretty much all of the plants commonly called for in cocktail recipes are easy to grow in pots. Just like all other edible gardens, you should grow the plants you love, so I’ve organized the plants below according to the cocktail that calls for them. Just find the drinks you enjoy and plant those fruits, vegetables, and herbs.

Margaritas

• Recipe – Perfect Margarita
• What to Plant – Lime tree

Hard Lemonade

• Recipe – Sunny’s Hard Lemonade
• What to Plant – Lemon tree
• Variations – Add strawberries, watermelon, or lavender

Bloody Mary

• Recipe – Upgraded Traditional Bloody Mary or try this Bloody Mary Swizzlers recipe
• What to Plant – Lemons, celery, and if you’re really hard core, cherry tomatoes to make your own tomato juice. Or if you’re into a more adventurous bloody mary, plant garlic, horseradish, and/or basil.

Mojito

• Recipe – Stephen’s Famous Mojitos
• What to Plant – Mint, but feel free to experiment with different types of mint!

Strawberry Daiquiris

• Recipe – Strawberry Daiquiris
• What to Plant – Strawberries and limes

Screwdriver

• Recipe – Classic Screwdriver
• What to Plant – Oranges, though why not spice things up and plant blood oranges instead?

Pina Colada

• Recipe – Ultimate Pina Colada
• What to Plant – Pineapples (just save the top from a pineapple and plant it) and strawberries.

Oh, and about making a garden that is enjoyable at night? Check out these ideas for creating a moon garden on your balcony.

What’s your favorite cocktail?

I wish the Earth Box had been around when I first started to grow vegetables back in 1978. At the time, I lived in a row house in South Philadelphia that had no yard. I grew everything in containers – large, plastic basins I bought at the hardware store – on my back porch. I drilled holes in the bottom of the containers to allow for drainage, but soon discovered that in order to prevent the soil from drying out too much during the summer I needed to water everything twice a day.

Years later, living outside of the city and with an in-ground garden, I found myself intrigued by the Earth Box, advertised as a maintenance-free, high-tech growing system that “controls soil conditions, eliminates guesswork and more than doubles the yield of a conventional garden – with less fertilizer, less water and virtually no effort.” What’s not to love?

I imagined what it would be like to grow vegetables in a weed-free environment, in sterile potting soil with no chance of soil-borne diseases. I envisioned how much easier gardening would be if I didn’t have to worry about watering.

The Earth Box kit came with the container, two plastic covers (elasticized around the edges to fit snugly over the edges of the box) and excellent directions for spacing requirements for a host of different plants.

Once I had the container filled with potting soil and the plants installed, the main task was remembering to keep the reservoir filled. The mechanics couldn’t have been simpler – all I had to do was put the end of the hose into the filler tube for the 3-gallon reservoir in the lower portion of the container. An overflow drainage hole made it impossible to over-water.

Overall, I was very pleased, and I’ve gotten good yields from my Earth Box. However, I’m very visual, and for me out of sight means out of mind. Because I couldn’t see how much water was in the reservoir, I alternately forgot to water or I added water when it wasn’t needed. So it didn’t actually save me much time. And I had to remember to water the container after days of heavy rain, because the plastic mulch cover kept the rain out.

The Earth Box does provide what it promises, and overall the results have been excellent. I think if you must garden in containers it’s a great way to go. But for me, even an Earth Box requires more work than my in-ground plantings. For starters, there’s some work involved in mixing up 2 cubic feet (about 60 quarts) of potting soil and getting it into the tub. In addition, I discovered that deer – a huge problem where I live – don’t care what kind of container a plant is growing in, and I ended up having to drag the Earth Box from my patio to inside my fenced-in garden.

* * * * *

Pam Baxter is an organic vegetable gardener who lives in Kimberton, PA. She is a garden writer and columnist for the Daily Local News in West Chester, PA. She has written for The American Gardener (the magazine of the American Horticultural Association) and is the newsletter editor for the Valley Forge Audubon Society and the Green Valleys Association. Pam blogs at http://www.gardeningonearth.com. You may also follow her on Twitter: www.twitter.com/pamsgarden.

While you’re flipping through all those glossy seed catalogs and marking down heirloom varieties of tomatoes and zinnias, take a second to consider the people in your own neighborhood who may not have enough to eat. Did you know that just a few bucks worth of seeds could help a struggling family grow their own vegetable garden? Give a man a tomato, he eats for a day. Give him a handful of seeds…

That’s the idea behind The Dinner Garden, a 501(c)(3) non-profit started by Holly Hirshberg. The Dinner Garden gives people fruit and vegetable seeds free of charge, along with advice and tips for how to grow them. The charity has been able to reach all over the country and has provided seeds to tens of thousands of families. I was honored to have the opportunity to interview someone like Holly, who saw a problem and has found an inventive way to help fix it.

Could you describe for people who aren’t familiar with your charity, just what exactly The Dinner Garden does?

The Dinner Garden is a non profit organization (funded by donations) that gives away free fruit and vegetable seeds to anyone in the USA who wants to start a garden. We are working to end hunger by teaching people to grow their own food in their yards and in containers and then giving them the seeds to get started.

Who are the people behind the scenes?

I am the founder and the Director of The Dinner Garden. I plan our public events, promote DG, make contacts in the community, and handle our social media. My husband Sean is the Chief Operating Officer. He does all of our financial stuff and manages all the seed requests. He also designed and maintains our website and built our database. Julie Autaubo is our Head Marketing Consultant. She sends out requests for donations, handles our press releases, and researches funding opportunities. She also makes the majority of our seed packs. Jacqui, my daughter, creates seed packs and leads activities for kids when we go to events.

We have other volunteers as well who promote The Dinner Garden, and pack up and distribute seeds. Many of our volunteers have special needs or are disabled. We believe that all people can contribute to their community and provide a lot of volunteer opportunities to people who have difficulty getting out of their homes for whatever reason.

Currently, we are all working as volunteers. We have no paid staff. Once we secure funding, we plan to expand our operations into helping establish more family and community gardens and support more farmers markets so our gardeners will have places to sell their produce. We also want to expand our Seeds for School Kids program into all 50 states.

How many seed packets have you sent out since you started The Dinner Garden? To how many people?

Last year was our first year in business. We sent out over 20,000 seed packs to individuals, families, and communities in 12 months. To give you an idea of how quickly we are growing, last month we sent out over 10,000 seed packs, half of what we sent out last year.

Do you ever hear back from the people who receive your seed packets? What do they say?

We do hear back! You can see a lot of the comments we get at http://www.dinnergarden.org/testimonials.html. People are excited to find another way to live. They love having more control over their own food security. Once the worry about not having enough food is gone, a lot of stress in relieved in people’s lives.

I noticed that you’ve started a project called “Seeds for School Kids,” how did that get started, and what is it all about?

My friends at the Food Bank told me about a backpack program where they send home food with kids for the weekend. There are a lot of kids in America who only eat when they get a free meal at school. I contacted the Arkansas Rice Depot and asked them if we could provide seeds to the 25,000 Arkansas kids and their families who participate in the backpack program. So far we have sent over 10,000 packs. Because we don’t have any funding or corporate sponsorship, we are raising money a little at a time to complete the project. We need $3,500 to be able to send seeds to the other 15,000 kids.

The best part of this program is that the kids who receive our seed packs get enough seeds to grow food for the whole family. They will also be able to save seeds from each harvest to plant the next year and share with their neighbors. It is a really inexpensive and sustainable way to get a lot of food to a lot of people.

We further support our gardeners through our partnerships with other websites. www.worldfoodgarden.org provides planting times and gardening mentors to our gardeners. www.lifeonthebalcony.com helps our gardeners who will be growing in containers. www.myhgel.com is our go-to resource for when our gardeners have questions best answered by a master gardener.

People were growing food long before there were gardening stores and we show our gardeners how to grow food inexpensively and using the supplies they have at home.

In 2009 you received the Yellow Rose of Texas Award from Governor Rick Perry, what was that like?

It was amazing! I was so honored! The award is given by the governor to Texas women for their “significant contributions to their communities and to the preservation of our Texas history, the accomplishments of our present and the building of our future.” I have only lived in Texas for 2 ½ years, and this award really made me feel like I belong here.

In other exciting news, I was just named a “Cabot Cheese Commonkindness.com Community Celebrity” for my work with The Dinner Garden. We are thrilled to be working with Cabot Cheese, a company owned by Farmers, and Commonkindness.com, a company devoted to funding charities.

However, these awards are not for me alone. The success of The Dinner Garden is due to the efforts of all of our volunteers working together to make The Dinner Garden the 2010 version of the Victory Garden.

What are your plans for the future of The Dinner Garden?

Our goal for the next few years is to have one garden for every 8 people. That is approximately 38 million gardens in the United States. It is a big goal, but it is a realistic goal that will end hunger in America.

I know that The Dinner Garden is a registered charity . . . is it more helpful if people donate money or seeds? Are there any other types of donations that could help your organization?

We are a 501(c)3 nonprofit, so all donations made to us are tax deductible. Right now, we need money the most. We are actively seeking grants and corporate sponsorships because we are poised and ready to go to the next level of serving our communities and gardeners. Donations of seeds are always needed and appreciated. If anyone has seeds left over from this years planting or last years harvest, please send them our way and we will find them good homes.

All of our services are free to the recipient and we don’t require anyone to prove their need. I founded The Dinner Garden on the belief that people want work to improve their lives. Anyone who wants to garden with us is welcome.

The vast majority of time, it is better to start seeds either indoors, or in a smaller container with the intention of transplanting the seedling to a larger pot. This is because it is really hard to get plants started from seed into the right spot in a mixed container if the seeds are sown directly into the container. That being said, there are a few plants that I think you should always directly sow into their first and only pot, and there is a simple way to remember which seeds to directly sow and which you should transplant.

Some plants develop a strong, central root, while others develop a network of roots that look like a rat’s nest of thread. Plants that develop a central root really don’t like that root to be disturbed, and those are the plants that you should sow directly. In the context of container gardening, the plants that should not be transplanted are almost always edibles. And it’s easy to tell which edibles have a single major root, because they are the plants with an underground part that we like to eat (i.e. carrots, radishes, etc).

What happens if you do decide to transplant a vegetable whose root you intend to eat? Well, if you damage the root during transplanting (which is very easy to do), the resulting vegetable will look like the carrot on the right. It’s also important to note that if you use potting soil that has chunks of wood in it (as many cheaper potting mixes are wont to have) you might have the same problem.

Oh, and FYI, even though this falls outside of the rule of thumb I outlined above, I know that poppies don’t like to be transplanted either. And like every rule, there is an exception: beets seem to do pretty well with transplanting.

Related Posts

• Asian Vegetables for Your Cool Season Container Garden
• A Word to the Wise: Not Everything You’re Growing in Your Kitchen Garden is Edible
• Direct Sowing vs. Starting Seeds Indoors

I promised I would share all the good information I learned at my Master Gardener classes, and today I learned a whole bunch of great stuff. The class was an introduction to horticulture and was taught by a professor from a nearby college. The first tidbit I want to pass along is the answer to a common question I find in my email inbox.

The question gets asked all sorts of different ways, but here’s the gist of a it:

Hi Fern! I just bought the most delicious apple at my local farmers market. It was so tasty that I saved the seeds and I really want to grow my own apple tree, so that I can eat these tasty apples all the time. I Google searched and found your article about growing apples in containers, but I noticed you didn’t have any info on how to grow them from seed. What should I do? Any assistance would be great! Thanks in advance!

I already knew that growing fruit trees from seed was usually futile, but I didn’t know more than “most modern fruit trees need to grow on different rootstock to be healthy.” But now I know there’s more to it than just needing to borrow another tree’s roots. By the way, there is a lot of bogus info on the internet on this topic.

You should resist that bad advice, here’s why:

First–and quite frankly, foremost–fruit trees reproduce sexually. Yep, you read that right. They reproduce pretty much the same way we do. Well, not exactly the same, but they do have sperm (pollen) and an egg that is fertilized by that sperm. And just as human offspring resemble their parents, but are not exactly the same (thanks to DNA contributed by each parent), so to are the fruit trees that grow from seeds.

When you buy an apple tree marked ‘Gala’ at the nursery, or a ‘Bartlett’ pear, they are actually clones of the one and only original ‘Gala’ or ‘Bartlett.’ To explain things simply, the person who bred the original plant realized it was a great tree, took cuttings, and then grafted them onto a different tree’s roots to make more of their great discovery. The breeder then sold those grafted saplings to nurserymen who then sold it directly to you (or to a garden center who then sold it to you).

Second, even though there are some types of fruit trees that will consistently produce similar offspring though, such as oranges, most fruit trees grown from seed would take over a decade to mature to the point where they can produce fruit. Oranges can take up to 15 years to become fruit-bearing trees. Who wants to wait that long? Even nurseries don’t wait that long. When you take a cutting from a mature tree and graft it onto rootstock, it is ready to bear fruit in a few years, not 15! Trees at the nursery are usually a year or two old. You’ll probably begin seeing fruit on it within a season or two after planting.

Third, and finally, my original point about rootstock. Plant breeders don’t breed for healthy roots, because they know that they’ll be grafting their creation onto a different rootstock. To go back to the example of oranges, they are almost always grafted onto sour orange root stock, which is much more disease resistant. Grafting also allows breeders to mix and match trees to rootstocks to create attributes they want, like dwarfism, disease resistance, cold/heat hardiness, etc.

If you were somehow lucky enough to sprout from seed a tree extremely similar to the parent you tasted, and you were willing to wait 15 years for the plant to mature, you still wouldn’t be able to overcome the fact that the roots that produced the fruit you tasted are not the roots your seedling will have.

So please, by all means grow apples in a pot on your balcony. I know from personal experience that oranges and peaches can also do really well in containers. But buy your tree from the nursery, don’t waste your time and energy on saving and growing fruit seeds.

Photo Credit: Muffit

I don’t know about you guys, but I have been giddily flipping through all of the seed catalogs I’ve received of late. It’s always hard for me to decide how many flowering and foliage plants to pot up versus how many vegetables, fruits and herbs. That’s part of the reason why I like edibles that are beautiful in their own right. I also like tucking in edibles here and there in my flowering pots so that I can make the most of my limited space.

What are you planning to grow this year?

I am so excited to publish the very first Life on the Balcony Blog Carnival! Thank a million times over to all of the people who participated. Without further ado, I give you a plethora of great posts on edible container gardening for your reading pleasure…

Grow Stuff You Can Eat Indoors

• Indoor Edible Container Gardening with an AeroGarden – Check out Viggie’s Veggies’ update on her AeroGardens. She’s growing herbs and even cucumbers (!!!) indoors.
• Growing Rosemary Indoors – Melanie shares her secret for keeping her rosemary plant from getting woody stems.

Frugal Ideas for Growing Your Own Food

• Container Gardening Ideas for Rednecks (and Other People on a Budget) – Check out Matt’s self-proclaimed Redneck NASCAR edible container garden. You can also see how is doing one month into his gardening adventure, and how Matt’s garden looks now.
• Redneck Frost Protection for Container Gardens – Matt share’s his inexpensive method for protecting his container garden from frost.
• 5 Healthy Recipes from the Victory Container Garden – Matt (a different Matt than above) shares recipes that he made with what he grew in his container garden. Additional ingredients cost less than $1!
• 10 Easy Vegetables & Herbs You Can Grow to Save Money – A list of plants that are easy to grow yet can be expensive at the grocery store.

How To _____

• How to Create a Hydroponic Vegetable Garden on Your Balcony – Lorraine provides solid info about building a vegetable garden on a patio or balcony that will water itself without access to a power outlet. Ingenius!
• How to Grow Any Kind of Tomato on a Balcony – Prue shares her tried-and-true (yet whimsical) advice for growing all sorts of kinds of tomatoes in pots on a balcony.
• Kumquats Make Excellent Container Plants – Angela talks about growing Meiwa Kumquats in pots.
• 7 Herbs You Can’t Live Without – Liz shares 7 herbs she grows in her container garden that she can’t imagine living without.

Dispatches from the Container Garden

• First Time Sowing Seeds - Barbara shares photos of her success starting seeds and her experience using a self-watering pot.
• Argula in Tucson, A Success Story – Les shares his experience growing edibles in a difficult climate with pack rats for neighbors.

Finding Beauty in Fruits & Vegetables

• Create Beautiful Citrus Container Gardens – Jenny shares fun tips that she’s learned from her landscape design practice for creating citrus container gardens that are as beautiful as they are tasty.
• Prolonging a Vacation to the Italian Coast with a Beautiful Lemon Tree – Todd and Diane planted a beautiful lemon tree in a rustic urn after being inspired by their travels to Italy.

This is the time of year when everyone goes crazy with seed and plant catalogs. Who can resist gorgeous photos of vegetables and flowers with equally tantalizing descriptions? It doesn’t help that the catalog deluge hits mid-winter when people are feeling a little cabin fever. But if you want to have a happy, healthy container garden that doesn’t leave you penniless, consider these questions.

1. What type of sunlight does your balcony or patio get? Full sun (6-8 hours)? Filtered light? Partial-shade (Some direct sunlight, but less than 6 hours of it)? Full shade (no direct sunlight)? Choose plants accordingly. Matching plants to light conditions and watering correctly will solve the majority of problems container gardeners face (including pest problems).
2. What do you like to eat? It’s great to try growing fruits and vegetables you’ve never eaten before, but be sure to hedge your bet with things you know you and your family like to eat.
3. Do you have a long growing season or a short one? Choose plants appropriate to your zone (i.e. tomatoes that don’t need a lot of heat for colder climates) Sometimes, even though you live in a certain zone, specific conditions on your balcony can be warmer or colder than the area as a whole. You can learn about micro-zones by locating your local weather station.
4. Do you get lots of snow? What about rain? Snow can be really hard on the containers themselves (freezing and thawing can crack pottery) if you plan on growing perennials. And rain is hard on plants living in containers. It’s good to choose plants with these two things in mind.
5. What plants do you see at the garden center and on your neighbors’ balconies? These are clues as to what grows well in your area.
6. Would you like to attract birds? Butterflies? Are you concerned about the plight of honey bees? Choose plants with birds, bees, and butterflies in mind. Remember not to spray with pesticides if you’re trying to attract wildlife!
7. Do you like to can, pickle or make jams/jellies? Want to learn? Consider berry plants and fruit trees or vegetables that are suitable for pickling.
8. Do you like caring for animals? Chickens are all the rage these days, but they’re not exactly apartment/condo friendly. But rabbits are, and their manure is just as good for your garden.
9. Do you enjoy bouquets of flowers? Consider planting a container cutting garden.
10. Are you into DIY or crafts? You can grow birdhouse gourds or plants commonly used in crafts, like lavender.

So, now that you’ve given things some thought, what do you plan to grow this year?

Photo Credit: Sweetbeetandgreenban