Container Gardening on the Cheap

As I may have mentioned previously the sunniest part of our property is unfortunately the driveway. This has led to an ever expanding container garden that lives there. Like everything else we tried to do this as frugally as possible which means we don't go out and buy lovely glazed ceramic pots for all our plants (although I'll admit I've bought a couple).

The cheapest way to get containers for a garden is obviously to see what you can get your hands on for free. We've had some luck with this, even getting one from a neighbor who knew we used them. But eventually we realized we actually had to buy some. I began noticing that all the large pots, even the plastic ones at the big stores, were still expensive, usually $10-20 each. Now this isn't terrible but for crappy plastic containers it seems like there would be cheaper alternatives. Why would I pay $20 for a plastic pot when I can get a plastic storage tote for $4?

Even better yet I realized we had at least one old tote that was cracked lying around. So I grabbed that plus a couple new ones and transformed them into containers for the garden. The only real modification they needed was drainage holes. I used an electric drill to make 6 holes in the bottom of each container. (These holes will later be covered with whatever we have around, seashells or pot shards, to keep the dirt from falling out or clogging them.)


I put a piece of wood under the spot where I was drilling. Why? Maybe to protect our immaculate lawn? Whatever my logic at the time was it seemed to help. And yes that is me actually drilling the holes, I swear it wasn't staged.


This is my crappy old container after drilling. How did it get so cracked you ask? (I'm aware you probably wouldn't ask that but let's pretend.) It was my recycling bin for awhile. I know it's not standard but my landlord didn't seem to think I recycled so I had to get my own and this had a green lid so I figured it was close enough. And apparently it was because the recycling guys always grabbed our stuff. But perhaps the bin wasn't quite close enough because it got some pretty rough treatment in their hands and that it how it came to be cracked and mangled. And now you know.


And this is the nice new one I defaced. Perhaps purple isn't the best choice but for $4 I can't really complain.

That was basically all that was needed to transform the totes. I even kept the lids to shelter the containers until the seedlings emerge to protect them from cats. Although if you do this you have to remember to take off the lids so the containers can get water when it rains. But then again you might want to leave the lid on if you are worried about a really torrential spring rain washing away your seeds. It is a delicate balance of lid use, but I don't have a job so what else do I have to do?

And if you are aesthetically offended by the look of these (which I wouldn't blame you) you could always surround them with your nicer containers.

I wish I had some nice pictures of these filled with plants but it's a little early for that. Since this is the first year we've tried to use these types of containers I guess this is still all theoretical but I don't see what could go wrong unless the plastic leaches chemicals into our vegetables and they all mutate. I hope that won't happen, but I promise to let you know if it does!

First Cucumber

Tuesday we harvested our first cucumber!

It’s an heirloom variety of pickling cucumber and mom discovered why some cucumbers are advertised as “spineless” because ours certainly isn’t. After I knocked the spines off with the back of a knife, and it had been cut into four equitable portions, we sampled the first real fruits of this year’s labors (with the exception of some herbs and puny snow peas). The flavor was…surprisingly blah. The flesh was cucumbery (which would sound silly if it wasn’t for the flavorless cucumber shaped vegetables they are passing off at supermarkets) but the skin was bitter. We’ll also probably never have enough at any one time to pickle them so it’s off to a local farm to buy our pickling cucumbers this year. Despite this our excitement was such that the cucumber got its own half hour photo shoot so that we would have lasting evidence of its fleeting existence.

We actually planted cucumbers out of desperation for something not in the nightshade family to rotate in our containers (which have previously had mostly tomatoes). Although we have a generous half acre most of it is shaded by oak trees that we are too poor to cut down. Ironically the only part of the property that remains sunny is our driveway. So our only real option was to start a container garden next to the garage. The containers include a few new ones but most either came with the property, were donations from neighbors, or are fairly old. The new ones are usually the ones we have to add every year to avoid repeating nightshades in the same pot more than once in three years. This year we have cucumbers, squash, carrots, one lone cranberry bean, rosemary, green and purple basil, parsley, Thai chili peppers, tomatoes, chives, radishes and salad greens.

Although everything is doing fairly well, one mystery remains: why is my purple basil turning green? Is it some sort of trick so they can get you to pay extra for the fancy purple basil, only to find out when you get home that it was really green basil in disguise? It may sound trivial but I really only bought this variety for the color, I have a recipe for a green Thai curry soup that calls for purple basil as a garnish and it looks just amazing (at least in the cookbook, I’ve yet to try it, that’s why I had to buy the purple basil). So, does anyone know why this happens? I’ve heard the same complaint from other people, is it too much sun or too little? Does it need more water? Or perhaps a monetary sacrifice to the gods of the local nursery to reverse the curse placed upon it when I bought it ($4.25 for a freaking plant, you’d think it would at least stay the same color!)?