Container garden 2011

Last year something that looked like late blight affected our garden bed so we started from scratch this year and built square foot gardens. At first I wasn't crazy about the idea (even though I'm the one who bought the book) because it meant buying stuff to grow in instead of using free dirt. Square foot gardening, if you go by the book, is outdoor container gardening. Here's a photo of the row of SFGs built over what was two long raised beds:

...and here are some tomatoes (Brandywine and Great White) planted deep in big pots:

I started all my seeds indoors on February 7. The ones transplanted into deep, wide containers are much bigger than the others. Still, I'm pretty optimistic about the SFG. I'm not sure I'm joining the cult though.

And here is the first ripe tomato of 2011 on June 26, a Siberia that I bought at Paulino's in Denver. It's one of the few I didn't plant from seed, the others being a Mr. Stripey (my first!), Red Robin and a Sweet Seedless from the farmer's market.

EG and I ate it. I don't think he actually likes raw tomatoes but he wanted to pick it and asked every day if it was red enough yet. I give up trying to rush the tomato harvesting. I experimented with plastic cloches on some pepper and tomato plants that I put out in April while waiting until late May to bring the rest of the seedlings out. The ones brought out early are no bigger than any others. This box has the ones that were camping out with cloches over them at night in mid-April:

The 3 little plants in the southwest squares have been out since mid-April

The cage keeps our dog from swiping vegetables. She will do an entire agility course for a green bean.