In happier, less war-ish news, a few Isis Candy cherry tomatoes have blushed (but not ripened yet) and a few serrano peppers were used in a salsa. They aren’t that hot yet, but with time, their flavor should heat up.

I had to get some support cages for the tomatillos since they’ve sprawled like crazy and aren’t respecting others’ personal spaces. The husks (that look like paper lanterns) are filling with the fruit and all of that is weighing the branches down. I don’t know why, but since they looked like lanterns or balloons, I though they’d stay light and airy. Idiot. So some of the branches snapped under all the weight of the lead balloons. I don’t think these injuries are fatal, though, that may be some famous last words.

• bunches of basil have been cut
• a few of those cuttings have formed roots so more basil plants will go into the garden today; yay?
• that will make 18 basil plants, all in various stages of growth
• that’s crazy
• tomatoes are forming on all but the arkansas travelers in the side and the raised bed; must figure out what’s wrong, if anything, with them
• a strong storm snapped one of the branches off of an arkansas traveler so I dug a hole in the ground and stuck the branch in it
• cause that’s what you do if you’re a gardener
• this area is the newly claimed space around from the side bed that used to be some sort of rock garden; it’s about 7-8 square feet
• the husks on the tomatillos look like mini hot air balloons
• the swiss chard didn’t make it in the containers, mostly because I stink at growing swiss chard
• blue lake bush beans will replace them; I’m doing several plantings over a few weeks to have a staggered harvest
• jalapenos!
• serranos!
• no bull-nosed bell peppers yet…
• I stink at growing bunching green onions
• both beds are mulched; maybe a little early, but it looks good
• potted plants (mint, swiss chard, oregano) all are doing well
• the rain barrels were getting close to empty before the rain storm yesterday; I’ve determined that I can go about 5 weeks between rain before they get empty

First harvest of the season belongs to the basil in SWC #1! Congrats, little basil. It was already beginning to flower and was about a foot high so I clipped off the top and put it in a cup with a not-so-subtle message to its siblings. I’m thinking of using this as a cutting to replace another basil plant in the raised bed that’s been thoroughly damaged by slugs (I think). There are 5 damaged basils, even though my mighty brain thinks I can save at least two of them. Don’t ask me how yet.

This is it, though. My original plan for this year was to have less plants, but hopefully similar or higher yield. Now I have just about the same amount of plants thanks to these homemade self-watering containers. So thank you, SWCs, for giving me more room to plant vegetables and for making me lose my tenuous hold on aesthetics.

These two new SWCs are built from 18 gallon totes. Each has about a 4.5 gallon water reservoir and one of them might be bowing on the sides already from the soil mix. Well, it was cheap and as long as the soil doesn’t completely collapse into the reservoir, it should be okay. I’ve put an isis candy in one and a better boy in the other along with 2 swiss chard plants. Basil will fill out both of them when my second round of seedlings are ready to go. I only started 5 basil seeds in this second round.

My hare-brained scheme to garden last year started with one raised bed. I then decided to use a narrow bed against the back deck  (what I usually call my side bed) to hold a few more tomato plants. Then I tried to grow some tangerine trees  in pots and I’m still not giving up on them. I built two containers this year just for the fricking hell of it. And finally, I thought that it would be fun to grow some onions and swiss chard in pots to see if they will continue growing in winter.

That all comes to 2 in-ground beds, 2 swc and 5 pots. And I’ve only been doing this for 2 years. I’m not so worried about what the yard will look like in 5 years as much as I’m concerned about what kind of person this makes me. Some free loving hippie, that’s what.

This is the second self watering container filled with 8 pepper plants – 3 serrano, 3 bull-nosed bell peppers and 2 jalapeno. It looks crowded because it is, but the official Earthbox guides allow for this many peppers and their boxes are smaller than mine.

One lesson learned with these containers is that transplanting the seedlings isn’t a fun task. The garbage bag restricts my ability to properly tamp down and fill in the soil around the roots. I need to research a better way before next year, if I do these swc again.

Here’s my raised bed with snakey soaker hose laid out. I gave each tomato plant 3 square feet this year instead of the townhome living they had last year. I had a total of 12 tomato plants last year in this bed compared to 6 this year. I hope to get the same or even better fruit production.

For someone’s who’s been blogging for about five years now, I sure forget how to do it sometimes. My super lazy personality has nothing whatsoever to do with it.

But I have been gardening for the past month. I barely have any photos to prove this, but if I write it out, maybe you’ll believe me:

• Everything has been or is in the process of hardening off. Stalks grew thick and sturdy under the ugly grow lights contraption I set up. The shop lights definitely worked much better than the sun by the window method and starting the seeds later helped with the timing of transplanting.
• The organic raised bed is all planted out as of April 12. It contains 2 marigolds, 5 genoa basils, two tomatillos, one san marzano, one better boy, one arkansas traveler and one isis candy.  I also sowed white lisbon and evergreen bunching onions, as well as one more basil and marigold flower. Everything gets more space this year which hopefully will help the plants not get stressed out in the heat of the summer.
• The first self-watering container is almost all planted. There is one arkansas traveler, one better boy, one marigold and one basil. I just need to add a swiss chard seedling.
• The second swc will be built soon and will hold all eight pepper seedlings I have.
• The side garden plot that’s been Miracle-Gro’d into oblivion is almost all planted out, too. There’s one arkansas traveler (theme?), one san marzano, three basil, two marigolds, evergreen bunching onions sowed and the rosemary bush from last year. There’s one more tomato plant going in.
• It’s going to be an amish paste seedling that we bought at the community garden sale. I was looking for this variety in seeds, but couldn’t find it way back in February so I thought I’d give it a go now. We also got an italian/greek oregano plant that’s been put in a terra cotta pot. It’s quite lovely and named Bruno.

So that’s about a month’s worth of gardening right there. I didn’t amend the beds any further this year, although I had grand plans of getting the free compost from the county. Maybe next year.

One self-watering container finished; one to go. I had to make the growing mix early for some of the materials to work their magic. Plants won’t go in for at least two weeks, if not longer. The soil-less mix is mostly peat moss with vermiculite, perlite and dolomitic lime. I watered it down (with free rain barrel water!)  until it was spongy, but not overly wet. The white garbage bag I used is a bit thin so I’m going to replace it with a black heavy duty garbage bag.

A few things you can’t see is that I used landscape fabric on top of the aeration screen to keep the mix out of the water reservoir and there’s a mounded row of fertilizer (Tomato Tone) in the middle of the container.

I filled the water reservoir to see how much it holds when full. Turns out, it has a 7.5 gallon capacity which is a little ridiculous, but I’ll be thankful for that when the temps hit the 90s and I don’t have to water everyday.

The other swc isn’t made yet because I needed a container to hold the mix while it’s settling down. I hope to transplant a few seedlings before the month is over. I figure I don’t have to worry about frost so I can get a head start in taking on Mother Nature.