Friday, May 22, 2009

Planter box successes and failures (4-wk progress)


It's the first time I've made a serious effort at planting veggies in the ground. My favorite day laborer built me the boxes, then I added a couple bags of soil and compost (stirred in with existing dirt). Two tomato plants went in (from a six-pack) and lots of seeds were planted in pretty rows and circles, but things didn't exactly work out as I planned. It was hard to guess how far apart things need to be laid out. A lot of these plants are new to me -- they didn't quite fit into the two plastic containers I farmed in last year. What was I suprised by? So many seedlings were eaten before they got to be two inches tall... I was thrifty with my seed spacing, not putting as many in as packets suggested. But if I had listened to the directions, my neat rows and patterns may have persisted rather than leaving me with the disjointed pattern of plants that somehow evaded destruction. Now the other thing that's amazing me is the size of the tomatoes and zucchini - by far the most vigorous plants. The tomato on the right grows 3 inches every day. Notice it climbing the rungs of the cage? It's about 4 feet tall and still going... Photos were taken at Week 0, Week 3 and Week 4. I'll give a run down on the other 2 planter boxes as the plantlets get a little bigger (and more photogenic).

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