Well, I've finally got my little garden in place...(dialup warning-pics)

[Richard Steele]

All my seedlings are out of their windows, and
transplanted into various containers now. And all
the containers are finally out of my front yard
"staging area" and up in their sunny summer home:



I'd like to see those rabbits eat my zucchini blossoms
THIS year! Ha!



Our "wild oregano" is doing well: We haven't weeded
or watered the stuff in 2 years, and it just keeps going:



That stuff grows like a weed; it'll fill in that backspace
this summer once I trim the bushes around it and eliminate
some of the shade.



Thanks to its elevation, the little rooftop gets more hours
of sunlight than any other spot on our property, so I'm hopeful
that my plants will like it up there. I tried to arrange them
in order of expected height, so that nothing will shade out
its neighbors as it grows.





And my potatos are going strong- my best bucket has already
received two layers of mulch cover, and will soon need #3.
I marked the original soil level on the bucket, so I can
keep track of how tall they really are.





I've got a total of 35 various containers, counting a few
here and there that aren't in that picture. They certainly
won't produce enough for us to survive on, but with the way
food prices are, I expect my little garden should save us
a few hundred dollars on "fresh organic produce" before all
is said and done.

[bvar22]

1. Ha! Very creative....very resourceful!

I usually don't click on threads with dial up warnings because we have a slow dial-up, but I'm glad I did!

I'm saving your post to show to Starkraven.
She will love this!
Please post updates so we can follow your garden.
Any comments from the neighbors yet?



Starkraven just looked at your garden and said, "Beautiful...How creative...I love it!"

[Richard Steele]

3. No real comments from the neighbors yet...

They were working in their garden plot (which is behind
the outbuilding visible in my rooftop photo) when I went
out 20 minutes ago, and they just waved and said "Hi"
as I climbed the ladder with my watering can.

I suspect they think I'm a little eccentric. :rofl:

I don't know them that well yet, but they seem like a nice
couple who are concerned with conservation. They garden,
they commute by bicycle a lot, and they use a clothesline
for their laundry.

Hopefully, our gardens will provide opportunity to make small
talk and get to know each other better in the coming months.

[knitter4democracy]

2. That's totally cool!

What a nice garden. I'm really impressed with the potatoes. I chickened out on them again this year. Maybe I'll gather the courage for potatoes next year.

[hippywife]

4. That is hysterical...

and very inventive. I love it! :rofl:

I'm still looking for more kitty litter pails or buckets. Put it up on craigslist and have had a few responses way out of the area I posted for. Only got two from all of the restaurants I checked into. Most said they don't even get anything in them anymore. I think some of them were fibbing, tho.

[Richard Steele]

5. It's sure not the most ELEGANT garden, is it? But I hope it can provide some inspiration...

...to everyone who thinks they "don't have room" to grow vegetables.

By using containers, you can grow food ANYWHERE you have
a square foot of sunlight. And the container method gives
a lot of return for a small investment.

Plus, the portability is handy. It's real easy to move a plant
that doesn't like the spot it's in.

One of those containers has 2 habañero pepper plants that I
raised LAST year- I just brought it inside when the weather got cold,
and kept it in the LR window. They lost most of their leaves
before the weather got warm enough to move them outside again,
but they're doing great now- they're covered in a thin layer
of tiny new leaves and flower buds.

I'm gonna have to trim of a whole bunch of the buds before they
blossom, or those plants will kill themselves trying to grow
fifty peppers at once!

[hippywife]

6. I think that the idea

of growing your own healthy food wherever you can is one of THE most elegant ideas. It really is awesome! :hi:

[Quantess]

7. Please grow catnip in at least one!

It would be so ironic.

[Richard Steele]

12. If I did, I'd have a certain fat white cat up there inside 2 hours. I guarantee it.

He -TECHNICALLY- belonged to the folks 3 houses down,
but he decided our yard belongs to him a few years back.

He naps atop a rusty little metal shed in the backyard that's
only about 18 inches lower than the roof, and he LOVES the
fresh catnip plants! (Only the fresh, oddly enough)

He's never cared for any of the dried catnip I've offered him,
but every time we've planted it he's just LOVED the plants to death.
Every one of them ended up crushed and broken in a small depressed
circle lined with short white cat hair.

[me b zola]

8. Love it!

I am planning to do container gardening. I'm concerned that the containers I have are former laundry soap buckets, and soap will seep from the plastic to the dirt/roots/plants. Should I be worried? Is there anything special that I should do to prep the containers?

I love that you are utilizing your rooftop. I saw an old episode of 'Take Home Chef' and the host bought herbs for the meal from a man in Los Angeles whose entire backyard and a portion of his rooftop was his growing area--all in containers.

Thanks for the thread, from one eccentric to another. :toast:

[Richard Steele]

9. I had similar worries about my buckets...

The scent they add to that cat litter is strong stuff,
and lingered long after the buckets were emptied.
I had to give them a good scrubbing to get rid of the smell.

I'd assume your laundry-soap buckets would be OK after
the same treatment. A laundry soap probably just left
fine dust on the surface, but didn't actually bind chemically
with the plastic. Once you can't smell the soap anymore,
they're probably fine to use.

[crispini]

10. I love your garden, it's very innovative!

Serious question -- will the roof mind being walked on that much? I wonder about these things. :)

[Richard Steele]

11. Roof-wise, I'm very lucky there.

That back room was an addition to the original house,
and, for reasons unknown, that roof was constructed
like a second-story FLOOR. It's 2x6 joists on 16" spacing
covered in plywood, covered in black rubber.

Why the original owners did it that way, I don't know.
But I'm glad they did. It's strong and solid; my only concern
is wearing tennis shoes up there and never my work boots, so
that I don't tear up the rubber.