Gardening update - June 2018

I have not done a gardening/Garden Tower Project post in a couple of years!

Once upon a time (2011?)  I saw something about the Garden Tower Project online somewhere.  It's a really cool container garden concept where you can vermicompost your kitchen scraps in the middle of the tube and it feeds your plants nutrients.  It really works.  I get much larger plants and much better production in this tower than I do either in the ground or in regular container pots.

I bought their first concept, and then I also kickstarted their upgrate version (it was two inches shorter to make shipping significantly cheaper).   They came out with a newer, really cool,  modular version, but with two towers on my little townhome patio, I wasn't about to buy another one, though I was super happy with the unit and really do believe in what the company is doing.

Well, when we moved a year ago, I was concerned that there were cracks in it and that they might not make the move.   I also wanted to know if this is something I should expect with so little use (they were less than 5 years old, and they are not cheap), so I contacted them.    They were SUPER! awesome and gave me a new one for free, and then offered a second one at a very significant discount, so I bought the second one (yay!).    Unfortunately with the move and everything going on last year I didn't bother getting the unit started and figured I'd wait til spring of this year (2018).

I also want to put on one the downstairs patio (walk out from the basement) and one on the upper level deck, but we need to get the deck rebuilt, so that one is in the garage waiting.   The lower basement one is up and running.   I did not start my own seedlings this year (my preference because I like some of the unusual/heirloom stuff you can't get as seedlings), and just went to the farmers market and bought what I thought would be sufficient.  The usual - tomatoes, cukes (that I can never get to grow!), peppers, zucchini and herbs.

So this is where I am now:

You can *hardly* see the garden tower in there, and I'm afraid I'm going to lose a lot of tomatoes.  I had them staked, but we got two inches of rain in four days and had some very high winds.   I'm kind of hoping they grow over sideways and don't actually split - we'll see how that goes (ack!)

There is a large container there that you can just see.  I might have overdone it with the tomato planting, expecting most of them to not make it... only they did.   We have to water that pot every day because they're so thirsty and over laden.

You can see the zucchini in the ground in front; they were extras that I just threw in the ground wherever I could think of.   I want to put down a weed barrier and make that entire area mulched so I can put in bird stuff and not have to worry about the mowers.

My basil is quite happy as well.  I planted some old nasturtium seeds in there (where it's bare), but I guess they weren't good any more.

You can see the cucumber plants coming over the retaining wall, and I'm perfectly OK with that (not so much the old AC unit that needs replacing).

A close up of the basil (after I got back from my trip).

These cuke and zucchini plants are actually where the hydrangeas will be going... but again, I overdid it on the purchasing, so I threw them in the ground.   I have better plans for next year, so we'll just have to see how that goes.  In the meantime, these guys are happy, though I did not put down a weed barrier, so I'm having a heckuva time keeping the grass out of that (I'll rectify it in the fall).

And up close shots of all the produce I'm proud of ;)

I gotta say, after living in a very sterile suburban area, it's super nice that the bees pollinate for me, instead of me having to hand pollinate!

This is what I brought to work last Monday (running out of space in the fridge!).

I planted all "pickling" varieties of cucumbers, but they're growing so fast I miss them when they're little!

And this is what I brought to work on Wednesday (before I left):

And this is what I came home to on Monday!   They're growing so fast!
That one cucumber is as big as a zucchini!   And that zucchini is almost as big as my forearm!

I measured it.  I was in shock!  And it's really good (not all seeds or tough).

I knew leaving my cutting mat out would be useful for something!

So these are my current garden (mis)adventures.   My plants are super happy in their new location;  My old place only got Eastern sun, and this gets a lot more, which is clearly very helpful.   We've also been planting trees along the edge of the yard and I've been mulching in a nice wide space from the fence so we don't have to weed/mow the fence line.

I want to put in some filler bushes, but I might throw any extra plants in those beds next year just to see what happens - I do plan on putting in weed barrier in the locations I planted this year, and I want to put in two raised garden beds along the western fence line for things like squash, cucumbers, and pole bean.    Big plans!  We'll see how it goes! :)

More gardening progress

It's only been a couple of weeks since my post about gardening updates, but it's coming along so awesomely!

I took these pictures in the morning and the rear of the house faces east (which means lots of BRIGHT! early morning sun, but some of the more sun loving plants tend to suffer)
You can see the chard is thinned out a little, because I harvested a bunch, and I have plenty of pockets that I should actually put some plants in.    This tower isn't as crazy as the other one partly because I put in a lot of pepper and other "non bushy" plants.  But I did have to stake one of the tomatoes!

Garden Towers into Garden Jungles

So I have a couple of the initial Garden Tower Project models.  I've been running them for three or four years now, and I always have this great desire to document their progress, and then I just don't.  But I'm still proud of them when I do document them, so why the hell not, right?

For my birthday weekend (mid April), my friends and I all go to the State Farmers' Market in Raleigh because that is the place to buy seedlings and other baby plants.    The Durham Farmers' Market is great for all kinds of other stuff, but Raleigh is definitely whats needed for a big planting project.

I did try to start a lot of seedlings, but there was a pretty high failure rate, I'm sure from the old, and not so well-kept seeds.  No problem, since you can buy tons of plants for super cheap at the market.  The only downside is that I like some cultivars that are rarer, so if I'm feeling particular, I *need* to buy seeds and start my own (Tomatoberry fruits are the best ever, IMO, and those are definitely not ones you find at market)

So here are my garden towers shortly after planting (some stuff overwinters well here, like chard, onions, and snap dragons).  This is April 21!


Same towers (slightly different angle) on May 21  One month later!


My tomatoes and squash are really going out there.   The onions are insane, too.  I can only do so much with spring onions, and I have three different "slots" with them.
I also have stuff in pots - Tomatoes, Ginger mint, Citronella, Snap Peas, Cucumbers.
And I have other things in the ground (as an experiment, I live in a townhouse, so it's a yard, but it's something others mow, so I tried to hug them along fences and the unit where the mulch is): watermelon, more squash, cucumbers, tomatoes.  I gave up on trying to grow luffas - that seemed to fail every year.

My salvia is going really well, which makes me happy because I have a number of hummers that visit every year.  I need to get the feeder up (still), but at least I know they'll come for the salvia, because they always do.

And, with even *more* excitement, my hydrangea, that I planted three years ago actually decided to bloom this year!

My only issue is a lack of bees.  The townhome "community" is rather sterile (lots of grass and boxwoods, nothing flowering), and I rarely see bees until later in the season.  I usually end up pollinating my squash by hand (or by eyeshadow brush, at least).  I'll get some carpenter bees and wasps, but not so much with the honeybees, which makes me sad (though I've planted lots of bee balm, I have a "hedge" of buddleia, and other bee-attracters)

Garden Towers!

So, one of the things I discovered online (and I can't remember from where, I think someone posted a link to it on FB or something) was the Garden Tower Project.   I was living in a townhouse-apartment and I had a decently sized patio, and had a lot of container plants going (actually using 30 gallon drums I had recycled from work).   But when I saw this project I pretty much fell in love.

In the middle of the container, there's a composting tube, so I can put my kitchen scraps and compost them using red worms.  And on top of creating delicious compost for the garden, they also crawl in the soil surrounding the tube, which disperses even more  nutrients to the plants.  And I believe it works, because I've tried conventional container growing against the garden tower plants and there is a sizeable difference.

And it's so much more efficient and fun!  And I don't have to "waste" my kitchen scraps!

On the list o "unintended consequences" - I eat a lot of tomatoes and squash, so I had a lot of volunteer plants from the compost that I used from the central tube.
Even with the insane winter we had, the worms made it through the winter A-OK.

I got my first garden tower (what I call the 1.0) in November of 2011, and then I kickstarted their newer version (it's 2" shorter, which significantly reduces the postage), which is the v1.5 (or Junior)

Last summer I had crap tonnes of squash, but for some reason they didn't grow as well this year, but this year I have crap tons of tomatoes, which I only had a few of last year.  And O.m.g. I love my zinnias!  whoohoo!

Here is my Tower 1.0

First "official" Garden Tower harvest for the year.

Anyone that knows me know that I love my Garden Tower (not to be confused with the Tower Garden).
I love it so much that I have two.   And maybe a $50 credit. 
And a whole FB album for it.

Anyway, it's ultra fun, and last year I managed to produce squash out the wazoo, and maybe a few cherry tomatoes. 
This year everything that didn't grow last year is going crazy, and the stuff that grew last year isn't, really.  It's so weird.

Here it is!  My ginormous, very tender zucc, a bunch of bell peppers, a whole lot of tomatillos, and then a few other peppers.
Not pictures?  The tons of cut flowers, overzealous herbs (mint, verbena, chives, tarragon, basil, thyme) and ripening cherry tomatoes that will take over my world.

 
I do have a lot of love for the various zinnias that are growing like crazy.  I think that due to the super-nutrient rich soil, they don't grow as tall.  they flower within a couple of feet, usually less.  Here's one name-less zinnia (I have a multipack, so I don't know what varieties I've got):

And my beautiful Ms. Mars sunflower (one of many):