Tomorrow is going to be a big day in my little backyard.  I’ve got – I think- about two, too many projects on the go and naturally I’m expecting rain.  that should have been a no-brainer to predict – tomorrow is Saturday after all.

One job not connected with my project will be cutting a new bed that will serve as the “fattening up” ground for about 70 tree seedlings – a mixture of Amur Maples, Larches, a handful of Spirea and soon some Crabapples. Why?  Well – did I tell you I also have a site that sells bonsai trees?  I market in both Canada and the US using local growers and in Canada it is very hard to find a good supply of outdoor trees – so I’ve decided to start up my own.  This project will take a little while to bear fruit so check back with me in ten years and I’ll let you know how it’s coming.  In case you’re interested this is my bonsai site – Zen Garden Bonsai.

Naturally I won’t be doing the digging myself – my chiropractor has already put his kids through college so he doesn’t need my help and I frankly have spent too much of this spring on my back with ice packs.  So my best friend is bringing in her son and a friend of his and I will attempt to roust mine away from his computer (paying for the work helps) and all these young strong backs will first cut a home for the baby bonsai.  Then they’re  going to dig in one of the big containers that will serve as the base for my hydroponic tomatoes,  cukes and squash.  The peppers will go in another spot.  They they’ll cut the sod and lay down some crushed limestone and patio paving stones so that the lucky man in my life has clear access to build the upright supports for the “pipe gardens”.

While all this is going on I expect to be doing my Martha Stewart impersonation ( not usually a very good one) and painting a few terracotta pots to look like copper with a green patina.  If it doesn’t work out, maybe I’ll just supervise.  I do that quite well.

Here are my vegetable seedlings – don’t they look terrific?

My Seedlings are all still alive!

And in case you’re wondering, yes they do so need the labels – mostly so I can tell the peppers apart.  I’m not really that picky!

I’m calendar challenged.  Always have been,  always will be (I fear) and when my challenge starts getting the better of me I get in trouble with very simple concepts.

Like if your starting seeds with an average germination of 7 days, it’s a pretty darned safe bet that in 10 days you’ll need a good way to get them into the light.  And if you’re planting jumbo sucker seeds like squash, you’re probably going to need to move them into their first pot inside of another 7 days.

So first I’ve run around like a madwoman to dig out and set up my little portable greenhouse-type-shelter-thing so my seeds could get some light only to discover that those little 3 inch pots were not to be found anywhere in my garage.  I can’t believe it, for the last 10 years I could have sworn they were practically breeding in the garage I couldn’t even find one.  So now I have a bunch of baby plants starting their life in the bottom half of small plastic coke bottles ( I was appalled at how many I found in my son’s room – gotta talk with that boy!)

On the plus side I found a viable organic fertilizer for my hydroponic vegetables and a good planter I can convert for my cut-and-come-again salad greens.   And if anyone asks about my coke bottle pots I’m going to take the high road and claim it’s a green initiative- actually they make pretty good pots – that stuff is good for something after all. And by the way, these lovely little hot peppers have been planted in coir.

But calendar challenged also explains the 75 tree seedlings that arrived before the garden to hold them exists.  I can’t cut gardens out of the sod any more- well not unless I’m planning to spend the better part of my summer in traction.  So I booked the young strong backs of a few members of the next in line in some gene pools I’ve been hanging around for a couple of weeks- but that won’t happen til next week and the trees got here last week.

The neighbours think I’m wacko since I put 75 tree seedlings into my two front door planters -I had to do something.  Just please don’t let them still be there in a month.

One of the (not completely ) answered questions for my summer vegetables in containers project was picking the best ones to grow.  I was looking for a combination of decent yields for the work and – I guess you’d call it -functionality.  I wanted vegetables that could be eaten immediately or could be preserved or could provide a sustained yield for a long time.

I also couldn’t choose all that many, because like the people I’m doing this for I’m pressed for time and space. Finally I wanted to work with plants that would let me test some different container styles – particularly for the soil less containers where I want to be able to check out larger single plant pots, smaller individual plants set into a pipe garden configuration and also I wanted to check out a “broadcast” planter box.  I want to check into cut and come again salad greens so I wanted the most surface area I could acommodate in the space.

Here’s the list so far- Cherry tomatoes, beans, acorn squash, picking cucumbers, lettuce varieties (loose leaf) and hot peppers.  If the hot peppers seem like a strange addition – all I can say is that they can be dried and held for a long time, I like the taste of hot peppers and I happen to really like the look of them too.

Although I’m kinda late getting off the ground, if I can I’ll try and also get some snow peas added into the mix and that will probably be it.

The seeds are sprouting – I dont’ have any pots and I haven’t built the hydroponic planters yet … got to get this in gear!

Today, I took the first step in setting up my project for the summer and I’m very excited about it. You see, I’ve loved gardening all my life and lately I’ve been really interested in things like small space, urban and container gardens, vegetable gardens, the whole idea of eating as much locally grown food as possible and what are the best ways to make that happen. I put myself in the shoes of someone working outside the home, maybe travelling a lot and maybe living in a condo or simply having only a tiny amount of ground or just a deck to work with.

So, here are the questions my summer project is going to solve:

1. Can I make it easy enough for busy, inexperienced gardeners to successfully grow vegetables in containers on decks, patios and postage stamp yards?

2. What vegetables will give them the best bang for the buck – so to speak?

3. Can they maximize the yield and minimize the work at the same time?

4. How does hydroponics play a role?

5. How can I make it affordable?

I am intrigued at the role that outdoor hydroponic systems can play to solve this problem and when I first started looking into it couldn’t understand why they aren’t used more widely. Now I understand all too well – the currently available systems are too expensive for broad adoption – unless of course your aiming for a far more lucrative cash crop than tomatoes and as far as hydroponics goes right now it’s WAY TOO COMPLICATED.

I want to fix that and that, is the project. I have some tomato seedlings on the way (I hadn’t really thought of my grand plan when I first ordered them) and today I started acorn squash, two types of hot peppers and pickling cucumbers. I have half the seeds started in jiffy pots and the other half in rockwool. I’m going to grow them side by side and compare the results.