Skip to main content

Pot garden progress

I'm still here!  I just got distracted by making a new soap website and I couldn't decide where to post this.  But I'm not ready to move just yet.  I wanted to show you my pot garden as I've been pleasantly surprised by what I can grow (in winter anyway).  We are going to build a proper garden and set up the aquaponics, but other things need to be done first and meanwhile my pot collection keeps growing every time I go to our monthly share meeting and come home with another herb!

Celery, peas, winter savory and parsley

I have my collection of pots stacked on my potting table, which is the size of a sheet of mesh - I think its 2m by 3m or so.  And I have more pots underneath.  The worm farms are up top as well.  It seems to be good for the shade-loving plants, like mints, yarrow and strawberries to be down below in the partial shade.  I really like the location, it is between the house and the shed, so every time we go to the shed or to the car, we walk past the garden.  I was going to put the garden further away, but now I can see that this is the ideal spot, so we will build our shade structure at the back (northern side) of the shed and put the garden right there.



What am I growing?
Well, all the herbs that were already in pots got moved, so we have:

  • Rosemary
  • Yarrow
  • Herb Robert
  • Peppermint, spearmint, chocolate mint, lemon mint (some of those are from the share)
  • Sage
  • Oregano
  • Lemon balm
  • Lemongrass
  • Winter Savory
  • Thyme
  • Brahmi
  • Soapwort
  • Winter taragon
  • Wormwood 
  • Tansy
  • Basil
  • Coriander
  • Parsley - hitched a ride with the lemon tree
  • Comfrey
Vegetables
  • Kale and tatsoi - was doing well until a bug found it, and is also going to seed now
  • Silverbeet
  • Celery 
  • Peas (best crop ever!)
  • Strawberries (also very happy)
  • I saves some perennial leeks too
Other stuff - I have a few trees and shrubs in pots that I hope to plant out soon, including:
  • Mulberry
  • Elderflower
  • Bottle brush
  • Various avocado and mango
  • Jacarandas
  • Silky oak
  • Flame tree
  • Dwarf lemon and lime trees that we've had in pots for ages
The hardest part with pots is that they dry out and you can find that you water them and it just drains out the bottom.  I have a collection of dishes and trays that all the pots sit in (some I rotate in and out if they don't like to stay damp).  This is the only way I have found to keep the soil moist.  If we are still using this system in summer it will need some shade as its currently in full sun.







And when we visit the old garden I'm always surprised to find things growing, last time I had a massive harvest of cheery tomatoes!  And there is always more kale.  I still need to take some divisions of violet, cardamon, galangal etc, but I need somewhere to put them!



I think I'll reduce my posts here to make time for the new soap website and these other outside chores that I should really be doing, but I do like to pop in and let you know that I'm still here and still growing things.  I post more regularly on Instagram and Facebook, so catch me there if you don't see me here.


Do you grow much in pots?  Any tips?  What do you find grows well?

Comments

  1. The best way to keep the water where you want it would be to keep a big shallow tray under the pots and slightly tilt it so the moisture loving plants are at the bottom end and the ones that like to drain are at the top end.
    Not sure how difficult it would be to weld up some metal trays big enough to fit a dozen or two pots. You may even find something suitable at a dump shop or recycling place.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Great update on your pot garden. You'll definitely need shade for summer, if you're going to grow in pots. Mine can even dry out in winter, if I don't water every day. A trick I like to use when my potting soil gets too dry however, is to sit them in a bucket of water for 20 minutes. The water should cover the soil completely.

    This re-hydrates the potting mix, and I've found no better way to do it. This is how I revitalise, a very sad plant. If you've got a lot of pots to soak, use a few buckets. Otherwise it will take you all day.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Thanks, I appreciate all your comments, suggestions and questions, but I don't always get time to reply right away. If you need me to reply personally to a question, please leave your email address in the comment or in your profile, or email me directly on eight.acres.liz at gmail.com

Popular posts from this blog

Chicken tractor guest post

Sign up for my weekly email updates here , you will find out more about chickens, soap and our farmlife, straight to your inbox, never miss a post!  New soap website and shop opening soon.... Tanya from Lovely Greens invited me to write a guest post on chicken tractors for her blog.  I can't believe how many page views I get for chicken tractors, they seem to be a real area of interest and I hope that the information on my blog has helped people.  I find that when I use something everyday, I forget the details that other people may not be aware of, so in this post for Tanya, I tried to just write everything I could think of that I haven't covered in previous posts.  I tried to explain everything we do and why, so that people in other locations and situations can figure out how best to use chicken tractors with their own chickens. The dogs like to hang out behind the chicken tractors and eat chicken poo.  Dogs are gross! If you want to read more about chicken tractor

The new Eight Acres website is live!

Very soon this blogspot address will automatically redirect to the new Eight Acres site, but in the meantime, you can check it out here .  You will find all my soaps, ebooks and beeswax/honey products there, as well as the blog (needs a tidy up, but its all there!).  I will be gradually updating all my social media links and updating and sharing blog posts over the next few months.  I'm very excited to share this new website with you!

Garden Update - July 2013

This month I'm joining the Garden Share Collective , which was started last month by Lizzie from Strayed from the Table , to allow vege gardeners to share their successes and failures and generally encourage everyone to grow more of their own food organically.  This first month, I'll give a detailed update on everything that's growing in my garden, for anyone who hasn't been following for long.  I'll do my normal farm update on Tuesday as well. If you've just joined me, welcome to my vege garden.  I recently wrote about gardening in our sub-tropical climate , so if you're wondering about the huge shade structure, that's for protecting the garden during our hot, humid summers.  At the moment though, the garden is full of brassicas, which grow best here in winter, and are suitably frost-proof.  The garden is about 12 m long by 5 m wide, and surrounded in chicken mesh to keep out the chickens and the bandicoots.  The garden has spilled out around the edg