SWC, SIP, Easy

In late May 2008, we came across the concept of Self Watering Containers (SWC's), also known as Sub-Irrigated Planters (SIP's). Different groups hold forth for one name or the other, and both have convincing reasoning, but most importantly, They Work! The underlying idea is that a reservoir of water supplies moisture to plants at a constant rate, as the plants require it.
While my in ground beds remained saturated during some parts of the season, and too dry during others, all of my containers were just right. If the rains soaked the containers, they simply drained into their reservoirs, which overflowed as needed. If the weather was hot and dry, I needed only to add a little more water every morning.
Here's how I made my low maintenance gardening containers. Let me state for the record, I didn't invent any of this! Articles and plans abound on the web, please do search for yourself. You may well hit upon a way of doing this that suits your unique situation. ( I haven't run across anyone using black corrugated drain tile like this, but someone probably has.)
Some of the many places to look;
http://earthtainer.org/Home_Page.html
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ediblecontainergardens/
http://greenroofgrowers.blogspot.com/

Enjoy, more to come...

Happy Thanksgiving!

I know, we were supposed to look at how to make self watering, or sub-irrigated, containers for growing vegetables and such. But I got some nice (for me, a non photographer) pictures of our frosted yard today and thought they'd look nice.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Here are some of the steps along the way to the Container Farm. At the end of May, after reading the "All New Square Foot Gardening" book, we put in two beds. This was a wet spring for us, with strong storms early on that knocked out power and left the yard, indeed the entire neighborhood littered with fallen branches ranging in size from twigs to logs. In the photo (July, I think) you'll see the only evidence that the cucumbers and squash were ever healthy. Soon after this, they were ravaged by powdery mildew, and despite my best efforts, never recovered. Everything else did fairly fairly well, except the garlic and onions. Then two (just two) hornworms cleaned out our peppers. They (the peppers) came back, but too late to really do much.
Then, we discovered containers...

End of the season, Begining of the Experiment

We just struck the sets on our first real attempt at vegetable gardening in over 20 years. Didn't turn out too bad.
A little history.
As a kid, I hated gardening. Vowed I'd have none of it when I was old enough to choose for my self. Besides, what could you possibly get out of the ground that could ever match the artificial, goldeny goodness of cheese curls?
Then I grew up. Learned that food costs money, and if you're gonna spend money for food, it might as well be good food. It took getting married to discover that "good food" didn't mean beef stew sluked out of a can onto a skillet. We raised two daughters and discovered even more about costs, food, and everything.
Then, on our own again, we looked around and saw that we, the collective, big "We", are in a world of hurt. Climate this, Peak That, Global the other. Financial disastrophie (I made that up, because I didn't want to use the other overused adjectives and euphemisms used to remind us that we live in Terrible Times), job insecurity, societal distress, unbridled greed and consumerism, and so on and so on. Maybe a little mid-life crisis, too.
Clearly, we are all in deep stew (not the canned kind), and there is AbsolutelyNothingInThisWorldThatWeCanDoAboutAnyOfIt!

Except, maybe, start a garden. So we did.