This is our
mid-summer review on the container garden and the various techniques
and choices made.
There has been
almost no rain, almost no overcast, and very hot temperatures.
Things were different this summer in various ways.
We tried the
following techniques (a) put the lettuce and the herbs such as basil
in partial shade in the hope they would not bolt so quickly. (b)
preventively spray with copper solution and neem oil now and then,
(c) when disease or insects attack, spray with various solutions and
then ruthlessly and carefully remove the affected areas and / or
remove the entire plant, (d) leave more space than ever before
between plants, especially the beans and tomatoes, even though this
would probably reduce overall yield because of less growing area,
(e) provide support for everything, beans, tomatoes, and cucumbers,
(f) in the case of tomatoes, try growing the seedlings in these peat
moss starting pods that they sell.
All of these
techniques worked out to one extent or another and are recommended.
What did not work
out was that we had total failure on our carrots and our peas, two
different types. I do not know why. I suspect that the peas were
victims of the birds, see below.
One surprise was
that for the first time, the birds viciously attacked small
seedlings, particularly the tomatoes, cucumbers and peas.
Bird countermeasures
consist of $20 of green plastic fencing cut half height and
surrounding each seedling with a cylinder of fencing material. This
worked splendidly and had the additional benefit of providing support
to the plant (cucumbers and tomatoes).
The end result was
pretty good availability of romaine, green beans and just ok
cucumbers. Basil was very useful. Almost all of these but the basil
are now history. The tomatoes are just starting. Peas and carrots
were a total failure.
We had less disease
this year. The green beans always had a lower leaf yellow rot that I
removed by scissors. One cucumber plant had a billion aphids,
knocked back with insecticidal soap and then the plant removed. The
cucumber leaves always had some sort of horrible rot that might have
just been leaf burn and which I ignored.
Strangely, plants
that in the past had delivered many crops only delivered one this
year. Green beans and cucumbers are most notable here.
Going forward, the
use of shade for lettuce and herbs, the much greater space between
plants, and the use of the green fencing are all solidly recommended.
This cost very
little this year, as we are in that sweet spot that equipment bought
can be reused but new equipment not needed.
Finally, one final
word of caution. If one were to do this to actually live on or for
economic purposes, the scale would have to be vastly increased, and
no doubt new issues would emerge.
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