The '09 "garden"

The New Egyptian Garden in 2009 was planted in containers or pots. Yes, a pot farm. This was because plans were afoot to move and it wouldn't be very smart to put a garden in the ground and then have to tear it up or leave it behind when we bought a house and moved out. The pot farm was in the front yard instead of the back yard. This kept the animals off the plants so I lost none to animals. Well I suppose squash vine borers are technically animals and they took out the squash plants once again (despite BT treatments) before they could mature but the slugs, rabbits, deer and groundhogs were disappointed.

All in all the container garden was a fair success with the exception of the squash plants. I had to do very little weeding and the soil was free of countless tiny violet bulbs (AKA the "boogers") that proliferated in the back yard. The Red Lightning tomatoes were a bit on the small side and there was not a great yield but the Brandywine and Beefsteak were very successful. I attribute this to the fact that the latter were in much larger containers than the former.

The beans were a moderate success and overgrew their neighboring plants in a big tangle making it difficult to find the produce. I also had a couple broccoli plants that had survived from the previous season in my workshop and although I didn't expect much from these plants I got a couple small heads. The basil and oregano grew well in their rectangular planters and provided welcome additions to tomato sandwiches.

I modified the automatic watering system that I had set up in '08 and it worked well. The container soil was a mixture of generous amounts of peat and pearlite with the previous years garden soil. I know, the experts say never use actual soil from the ground in containers but I worked so hard on that soil that I couldn't resist and besides it would have been too costly to buy all the ingredients to fill all those containers. Call me a cheapskate but one of my main reasons for planting a garden in the first place is to save money by growing my own produce. Ray Magliozzi calculated that after he got done buying all the necessary garden supplies each tomato he harvested cost him about $11.00



I should have taken more pictures. Here is the Beefsteak tomato plant in May.












The pepper plants. They did well in spackle buckets.















The Beefsteak plant in early June. Just after this it started setting fruit.











This is what it's all about. It's a Brandywine.