called " bag gardening" a while back before planting season.
I prepared the beds and the bags of fertilized soil, and quickly, flower and vegetable seeds sprouted!
The sprouts quickly grew.........
bloomed...........
got thicker.............
and produced well! Do I prefer it over regular gardening in the ground........not really. It sprouts and grows just about the same and the radishes taste the same. However, as a dear visiting friend pointed out, it is so much better for those who don't want to dig in the ground or who have small spaces. I will probably continue bag gardening in my smaller beds throughout the years and still use my wide open spaces as I normally do. Have you given this a try?
Out in the potting shed, I sprouted flowers
pumpkin, cantaloupe and zucchini. They grew well there for 6 weeks, I then hardened them off and planted them in the garden. That week, our temperature reached up to 106 and every plant burnt to a crisp................sigh. What the heat forgot to zap, the mice ate down.
However, I don't give up.
I replanted into the garden spaces. This week we have had a lot of rain and now, everything has sprouted! I guess this is the way it is in every thing that we face in life. We plant our seeds of hope and we sail on a cloud for the first few weeks, then some kind of hardship comes along and we find ourselves devastated and how it all failed. But we manage to roll up our sleeves and give it another try.
Don't we??
I also have green tomatoes! I love red............but I look forward to the green for a dish of fried green tomatoes in the making!
How about you?
Have you planted something and are enjoying the fruits of your labor?
Or have you had a set back and are struggling to bounce back?
I would love to hear!
******visit my cooking blog for some wonderful history about Better Homes and Gardens and a vintage recipe! click on link to visit.
19 comments:
Hi Kathleen! I like your bag gardening. If I'd not had some boxes built this summer I was going to have some bags, too. I told my sister about this method as she has neither the time nor the space for a garden. I don't know if she did it or not but she loved the idea. Yes, ma'am, I've had some disappointments, too. I had to replant my purple hulls. I don't know if a big rain washed the newly planted peas or the dove ate them. The dove have been hanging out in my garden this spring... dad says we gotta share with the animals... really didn't want to share my peas...
I'm so glad to know the bag thing is working for you! It looks really good! I think gardening is as much about growing patience as it is growing crops. There have been times I have thought that the only place I would be able to harvest anything is at the Farmer's Market, but I, too, keep trying. Good luck this year!
Just about every time I had a plastic bag to throw away, I thought of you and this method of gardening, but still haven't tried it. Wow! 106 already? We haven't been hot yet, but we are really dry here; the little veggie plants just sit and wait. Good weather for baling hay anyway.
I just bought a bag of soil today (o: good idea.
Love that mama duck (o:
I love your analogy to the hardships of life! We don't have a garden at all this year - first time in a long time with no tomatoes of our own. But we'll visit the farmers' market. So sorry to hear about your scorched plants and and the 106 temps.
That is exactly how it is, Kathleen. We fall down, and then we get back up and go again! We had some nice rain today, but is dries out awfully fast again, doesn't it? I think you have to be an optimist to garden. There are so many setbacks, but we continue to believe we'll have that perfect garden, so we keep trying. And it's good!
I lived in the desert for many years and struggled to grow anything. But now living in the Northwest, I find I can grow anything! The weather is just perfect to grow anything, except hot chili peppers.
Hello Kathleen,
Interesting to hear about your garden. I guess with the bags the one advantage is you could keep them in a barrow and move them around according to the weather,if we had enough time. Good luck with your new lot of plants.
happy days.
Bev.xoxo
I've seen several other bloggers try this method and sometimes I thing I want to do this also.
Good for you!
Linda
http://coloradofarmlife.wordpress.com
http://deltacountyhistoricalsociety.wordpress.com
Kathleen,
I read about bag gardening a few years ago...maybe in Mother Earth News. And I've used it a couple of years. I have wonderful drainage in my gravel ground, but some places, the dirt is just not so good. So I have purchased bags and done this. The plastic bag helps to kill the grass and stuff underneath, the dirt is good, and when I'm done, I flip the bags and make my garden spot better. Some times I have added another bag the next year and done another layer of bag gardening, and sometimes I have just re-used the same dirt.
I still plan to try your idea of bag gardening. If we try different methods surely something will work...right?to gardening this year have been losing much of our sweet corn to the crows, and the lack of rain. As Lil Red Hen mentioned everything seems to be waiting. Best wishes for a bountiful harvest...your tomatoes are looking good!
Looks like the bag gardening worked pretty well for you. I'm sorry to hear your transplants you started early didn't make it, but you're right, best thing to do is just try again. I hope you get all the rain you need this time around.
Kathleen, our garden is very compact this year compared to previous years and we are loving the change. We have a couple of tomato plants, few peppers, some herbs, cukes, and beans. We will look for some farmer's markets for the zucchini we didn't grow! Never tried bag gardening; sorry the heat fried your earlier outdoor plants.
I read your post about the bag gardening earlier and have since purchased a good number of bags of soil to put in my raised beds where the bermuda grass took over. Put dog/cat food bags down and then weed barrier cloth and put soil bags on top of that, hoping to defeat the grass. Will be planting some seeds this week. Glad I didn't plant earlier as had a bad hailstorm two weeks ago and would have lost everything. I am so anxious to see how this works!
So glad to see your update...gives me hope!
I haven't tried it yet, but I do think I would like it because of less weeding.
I just might try this.I think I have a picture of a farm that uses this method, I need to go back and take pictures of the bags now and see how these bags fared.
Your love of gardening prevails in spite of the mice and the heat and it shows. I just wilt with heat sickness when the temps around here get over 80 degrees.106 degrees? WOW!
Oh, Kathleen, I enjoyed this very much! I'm sorry you don't have zinnias this year and that you lost your first cucumber plants to the heat. I started my garden about a month ago (though a month before that I did plant a few plants I bought at Lowes) and I am growing heirloom seeds, and everything is looking great! Will post pictures soon!
I made your Irish Soda Bread recipe, and have found my stove needs to cook it a little longer than it calls for, or it's gummy....but if I cook it long enough it is SOOOO GOOD! Thanks for a great recipe!
You should look on Lazy J Bar C Farm (find it on my sidebar) and check out my new friend Candy's blog. She reminds me a lot of you! And I told her about you the day we met at the Desert Museum!
Hope you have continued success with your new plantings!
I have seen bag gardening but never tried it! Thanks for the info:)
Wow, I had gotten behind with you! I love the success you had with the radishes and other plants in the plastic lined garden beds. I've been saving my soil bags to give that a try.
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