Saturday, October 10, 2009

Beginnings of the Container Garden!

For a while now I've thought about growing my own vegetables. I've always grown up with home grown vegetables, my parents and my grandparents all being keen gardeners themselves. I have great memories of picking pea pods in Granddad's veggie patch and eating the yummy raw peas inside. I also have less fond memories of my dad growing several tonnes of courgettes and declaring that he "grew them especially" for me every year, despite the fact that I absolutely hate them. So I won't be growing courgettes, and I'm aiming not to grow so much of one thing that I won't know what to do with it and it goes to waste.

At the moment I live in rental accommodation and whilst we have a lovely garden I can't exactly dig it up for a veggie patch. Our Landlady doesn't even trust us to care for the garden properly and has a professional gardener do it for her. Hopefully I will soon have my own house and garden, but in the meantime I'll have to make do with a container garden.

My little veggie collection started when I was at the Farmer's Market one saturday morning, and on impulse bought 3 cherry tomato plants. A couple of days later I headed to a local nursery, YouthGrow in North Dunedin, and picked up a few more seedlings. YouthGrow is a nursery run by Presbyterian Support, helping young people to earn skills and gain employment. I am a volunteer for another PS initiative, the Buddy Programme (which I'll blog about another time). They do a lot of charity work with families in Dunedin and so I wanted to support them by buying some plants from the YouthGrow nursery.

I've decided to start small and kick off my veggies with seedlings rather than attempting to grow from seed. Less chance of me killing them! Once I get into the swing I'll start growing a few things from seed, but I don't want to over do it and end up with too much all at once.


The plants are currently living in the skyloft, our conservatory on the roof. On calm, sunny days I'll put them out on the balcony but the weather has been so changeable lately I dare not subject them to that right now.

I've also replanted them into bigger containers, so now they've moved from the bookcase to the floor.

I'll update with more photos as they grow and I add more to the collection! Can't wait until harvest time!

2 comments:

Lee said...

No!!!!

Trust me, seeds will work!

We need to get together, and I'll give you a whole stack of seeds to try growing.

I grow them on the windowsills until they're big enough to go outside, then out they go. It is SO much cheaper!

I'll chat with you on FB (if FB will let me login - I'm having real problems) and if you want we'll organise for you to come over and I'll show you what I'm doing.

If I - the Black Thumb Of Doom - can do it, then you can!

Lee said...

But I have to say your container garden looks awesome :-D