Container Gardening

Gardening. I have idyllic visions of me going to my garden and picking vegetables for an afternoon lunch; perhaps a nice tomato and basil salad. Or having so many zucchini that I'm running out of friends and neighbors to deliver homemade zucchini bread.

Yes, these are nice thoughts. Unfortunately in the past it wasn't practical to grow a garden while I traveled nearly every week for work. But things are different this summer. I no longer travel for work. My unattainable, intimidating yet very enticing garden dreams could actually come true.  -These were my plans for this summer.

Time to be like Nike and Just Do It.


I am still a little intimidated to dig in the ground and grow my beautiful garden. So we bought containers and started out small. One Jack Daniels half barrel full of 5 different herbs: parsley, basil, cilantro, oregano & thyme.

and three individual containers to grow a tomato plant, zucchini plant, and bell peppers.

So far everything is growing pretty well. We've enjoyed the fresh herbs, but it's been a learning experience. Unfortunately we didn't do a good job keeping up with the plants. The cilantro grew like crazy and then started to seed. I had to cut it all the way back. I also didn't keep up with the basil and now they are large stalks but still producing good leaves. I'm careful to pinch off any beginnings of flower buds. And the parsley has a little white powder on the leaves. I'm deciding whether or not to cut those all the way back as well. And oregano. What does one do with a lot of oregano?? I sure don't know.

Putting the vegetables in little containers may not have been the best idea. Their leaves drop midway through the day if I don't water them. I wonder if I had put them in the ground if they would need as much watering. The tomato plant is producing a good number of little tomatoes. I watch them grow every week. I can't wait until they turn red and are ready to eat. 


Soon I may get my chance to eat a basil & tomato salad fresh from my garden. I will count that a gardening success! 




Exciting news is that we have one good zucchini already. Although I'm worried that this may be the only zucchini of the season. I fear that the plant is too big and the container is too small. Plus, now many of the leaves are yellow and spotty. We had a lot of rain the past few days. I think the plant may have become water logged. It doesn't look very good anymore. 


My plans of baking zucchini bread, even just one loaf, won't be happening this summer. 

Not sure how the bell pepper plant will do. There was one cold night in the beginning that it didn't like. And then it had bugs. But finally it is flowering. My fingers are crossed... 

Maybe container gardening hasn't been a true success... although I'm still hopeful to turn things around. It has at least given me the gumption to plant a garden for real next year. 

View of herbs today. Cilantro -  cut back. Basil - still good but tall, tall stalks. Parsley - not so sure about but still going crazy. Oregano & thyme - happily growing well.