I haven’t seen them yet, but I hear that there are sprouts in the planters out on my deck. It was almost a week ago that we planted seeds for four different vegetables and three herbs in containers of varying size, shape and vintage. Unlike last summer, thus far I have been quite diligent in watering, and the tiny half-bent green tendrils are starting to reward us with ever-increasing presence. If all goes well over the next few months, there should be at least something edible that we will be able to harvest from just outside our door. There may not be much quantity or variety, but growing real food from virtually nothing is quite the product in itself.
My wife and I live in what seems to us a quite large condominium, almost twice the size of our last apartment. However, the fact that it is a condo, not to mention on the third floor, means that we have no soil in which to create a garden. We both had experience gardening with our families and wanted to try it for ourselves, so a little creativity was needed. And thus was born the container garden. It started small, with one borrowed (and never returned) round planter and a trip to Lowe’s to buy a larger rectangular one, and has grown ever since. Sitting on our deck as I write this are the original containers plus three more purchased in the succeeding years, as well as an experiment in using wooden boxes to grow herbs.
We aren’t exactly building on success with all this expansion, though. It has been three years that we have attempted the container garden, and not once has it really been productive. That first year with our two planters, we excitedly rode the bus to the local Wal-Mart garden center, minds racing with images of the bountiful gardens of our youth. The cherry tomato and hot pepper plants we chose from the racks of young plants actually did generate some food, but a lot went to waste unpicked or sitting on the counter waiting for a use. We were both in college at the time, and though we really liked the idea of gardening, we just didn’t have the time to put in to it.
Moving forward a year or so, after relocating to our West Des Moines condo, we decided we finally did have the time, and thus should expand our efforts. Two more containers in hand, we planted seeds for tomatoes, sweet peppers, green beans and spinach. Well, as I alluded to a few paragraphs ago, the fact that we had time to garden didn’t exactly mean we used it to maintain and water our plants. Miraculously, many survived through our neglect, the limited light on our deck and the vicious winds we often see here. Unfortunately, the spinach withered, the peppers were tiny and bitter, the beans arrived one or two at a time, and the tomatoes had a bizarre tough skin that made them very unpleasant to eat. Not exactly Little House on the Prairie material.
My family’s garden, on the other hand, was and still is an achievement in self-sufficiency. Our house was built in the late 80s in a fairly typical suburban subdivision. A large plat of land with labyrinthine streets peppered with similar houses on ¼ acre lots, the development doesn’t exactly lend itself to large-scale agriculture. But for one white house with blue trim in that subdivision, making the most of a small piece of land keeps my family in fresh fruit and vegetables all season long.
Where many of our neighbors’ yards are consumed with keeping-up-with-the-Joneses swimming pools or kept empty so the kids can run around, almost our entire backyard is put to good use. There are at least a half-dozen dwarf apple trees, a trellis with grape vines, and a berry patch with currants, blueberries and raspberries. And then there is the garden itself. Two rows of wooden boxes partially sunk into the ground run the width of the yard. The boxes are used to separate different crops, so one has tomato cages while another has bean towers while still others are open for leafier plants. Each box is carefully planned to maximize output in the limited space.
This past weekend I was at home, converting the boxes from chaotic messes overgrown with weeds to a garden ready to produce. My siblings and I weeded, tilled, sowed, planted, and in the course of three days saw an amazing transformation. But the real incredible change will come in the next few months. By the time I left there were several small plants started indoors and transplanted, but many more areas that looked empty waiting for seeds to sprout. By August the backyard will be a menagerie of spreading tomato plants, sturdy peppers, sprawling cucumbers, climbing bean vines and dense forests of greens. It will be enough to feed my whole family those vegetables (and the many more I haven’t mentioned) until the weather starts to turn.
That’s what’s really neat to me. Sure, we spent a few dollars on some seeds, but in essence the entire garden was built up with a weekend of hard work, some knowledge about plants and the determination to essentially make something out of nothing. And in the meantime, I got to get my hands dirty and spend quality time with my whole family. I was absolutely happy to be done by the end of the weekend, as it was fairly exhausting work, but it was satisfying to help create a magnificent garden out of a few seeds and some dirt.
Now I recognize that the container garden on my deck isn’t going to reach the standards set by our garden back home. But the concept and the idea drawing me in to it is still the same. Buying some containers, a bag of soil and a few seed packets, and I might be able to replicate that feeling of creation on a smaller scale. I know our problem has been in not keeping up with the work for our containers, but maybe looking back at my family’s garden that I worked so hard to set up and knowing what it has produced in years past I can find the motivation to really make something of it.
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