Container Gardening Experiment: The Saga Begins

According to the chart that Burpee published and Home Depot hung in their garden center, today, May 25, is THE BEST DAY OF THE YEAR to start planting seeds in Northern Ohio. So, I have duly planted a host of seedlings and am settling into the waiting game to see if any of them actually work their magic and, you know... grow.

I know some of my readers are fortunate enough to live in areas with a fair amount of available land to them. Mr. Scrimp and I, however, have a postage-stamp front lawn, a front step with a foot or two of space on it, and no back yard at all. So, traditional gardening just isn't really an option for us. We have a couple strips of rocky, weedy ground off to one side of our driveway, that gets just about the right mix of sun and shade to be perfect for growing plants in. That's it.

So? Container garden!





Our total investment so far has been pretty minimal. $8 for soil -- one bag of organic Miracle-Gro garden soil and one bag of topsoil, on the recommendation of the garden people at the store. $3 for a serrano pepper plant and daydreams of homemade salsa. $6 for seeds. $1.50 for Dixie cups to start seedlings in. A few dollars for cheap pots where something couldn't be salvaged or rigged up from things we already own. All told? Less than one week's groceries.

After this, the only other investment really going into it is time and memory (I am notorious about forgetting to water plants).

I'll put some pictures up in the next day or two, and from there I'll start updating once a week on our progress, assuming there is any. Can you tell that I'm fairly pessimistic about my gardening skills? There are reasons for this.

But, if I can succeed at container gardening, anyone can. And it's an investment I'm willing to make. For the total $30-odd we're going to end up spending, we'll hopefully end up with FAR more produce than the same money would get us at the store.

We are attempting to grow: Serrano peppers, basil, tomatoes, cucumber, chives, mint, and maybe maybe maybe some cantaloupe, although I am not optimistic.

I also bought a packet of chamomile seeds. Chamomile grows wild all over the place where I grew up, and my experience is that it's quite hardy, so I'm going to experiment--some in a pot, and some just scattered in amongst those weeds and rocks I was telling you about.

I also want to pick up a few more packets of herb seeds. I covet an herb garden.