Gardening in Buckets
Geo
buckets on my balcony.
Early on I tried oblong 4 gallon discarded cat litter buckets. Lately I have
standardized on round 5 gallon buckets. They are a little bigger and more
resistant to strong wind. I am convinced that the extra gallon makes a
difference also. I think that this difference will be shown when my two
broccoli plants are fully mature with flower heads. One is in a 4 gallon
bucket while the other is in a 5 gallon bucket.
Attached are three recent photos. The first two were taken a week or so ago.
The last one was taken today.
The first photo shows my very first experiment growing herbs in buckets. I
haven't had nearly as much success with tomatoes and a few other plant
varieties. But as you can see, this oregano plant is growing beautifully. It
is still in the same 4 gallon bucket that was used when I first planted it
more than three years ago from just a single twig cutting from another plant
growing in our yard (it's still there too). If you look closely you can
barely see the white bucket handle floating in the middle of the foliage on
top. That's all of the bucket you can see. It's really huge for a potted
herb plant and it's actually much better than its parent in our yard.
The second photo is a recent experiment using 1 gallon milk jugs. These are
basil plants. What's unusual here is that the milk jugs have no holes in
their bottoms. Thus there is no drainage. At first I thought that this
approach would fail because I accidentally over watered a few of these
plants and killed them. But once I learned how to water in only tiny amounts
these plants took off. They have being growing in these little milk jugs for
at least 4 months now.
The only downside to the 1 gallon containers seems to be small leaves. I
have learned that a small container definitely means not only a small plant
but also small plant leaves. This approach does show however that you can
grow basil in small containers inside the house without fear of leaking
water.
The last photo shows my first effort at growing Swiss chard in a 5 gallon
bucket. As you can see it has worked out very well so far. This plant has
been growing for a few months now. We had never eaten chard before this. We
were hoping for something similar to spinach for use as soup greens. The
chard is a little too sweet for that purpose, but it is nice saut�ed in
garlic or oyster sauce. We will likely switch to spinach next time.
