Above ground container vegetable garden using rainwater -- Video #2

5 May 2011 -- Day 11

I have not seen as much growth as I would have expected, but it is after all only early May and it has been just 11 days. Some issues that I have had to deal with are birds digging in the pots on the tripods. Wrapped the tripods in a fine netting, so that should take care of that. And the Early Girl tomato plant in the right 5-gallon bucket started to grow up and hit the bucket bottom, so a few days ago I used some wire to give the bucket a tilt so the plant would grow away from the bucket. Will re-straighten the bucket soon now that the plant is away from the bucket.

Have put white plastic tops on the 5-gallon buckets so I can control how much water they get. The first time I planted tomato in these buckets, I watered them every other day & they got yellow and dies within a week or so. This early in the spring, I figured it was probably not required to water them so often. As I mentioned in Video #1, these three tomato plants you see here are the second attempt. Have only water twice so far, but the tilted bucket with the Early Girl got whet ever rain we received yesterday as the top was off!

Turned a water feature into a little greenhouse to try and get some additional early spring growth from some of the plants. Planted about 15 plants from the trays into small pots and placed them in a concrete "shell" bowl. Wrapped the bowl and statue with plastic sheeting to create a little greenhouse. So far, after about a week, the tomato plants in the greenhouse are twice as tall as the tomato plants not in greenhouse.

Was concerned about not having enough water from the roof during the summer. If we get into a period without thunderstorms, I might need an additional source of water. So in addition to rainwater from the roof, I am also now collecting the water from the six condenser from the split system AC units that we have to cool our house in the summer. Last summer, I used this water to water the flower beds and noted I could get as much as 5 or so gallons a day when it was hot and muggy. I am collecting this water in a small tub that has a float switch & 12-volt pump that comes on for a few minutes every 4 t 6 hours to pump the water into the blue, 30-gallon barrel. Can't collect too much water for the summer I guess...

Category:

Howto & Style

Tags:

• gardening
• vegetables
• above
• ground
• containers
• upside
• down
• planters
• growing
• topsy
• turvy
• backyard
• tomato
• squash
• cucumbers
• peppers
• recycled
• rain
• water
• barrel