Planter Box Garden

Well I just had enough of building on the sidewalk, so on Tuesday I went over to a friend's house and built another four planters in his basement. Less headache for sure and it really rained that day. I planted them up with tomato starts, carrots, basil, and green beans. Unfortunately, those green beans are pole beans and I planted the starts as if they were bush. Now I'm either gonna have crowding, shade, and trellis trouble, or I gotta pull those out and replant. Its so hard to yank out seedlings after a certain point and these guys are past that point.

I'm not so sure we're even going to get enough sun in that side garden for vegetables like tomatoes. When I put perennials in that area, its seemed so shady as it was November. But by last summer the shade lovers were wilting for too much sun. They get heavy morning sun, but by June 21st, I think the 6 hour sun will max out and then they will see less and less. So an interesting experiment it will be.

My box design is less than perfect and rudimentary in design and construction. But it was easy and thats what I was looking for. Remember my alternative, my original idea was to use those 5 gallon pails so readily available. That would have been a cheaper proposition. These boxes, had I found more scrap wood, would have cost me the price of the screws. Instead I bought $100 dollars worth of pine planks and 2 x 2s. I made 5 planters from new wood and I expect 5 years out of these boxes, giving each planter a $5/year cost. Every year longer reduces that cost. Of course, if I spent more on cedar, I would have longer-lived boxes. One of our scrap boxes is made out of redwood and that should last 10 years at least.

Its raining today, happy to not have to water the vegetables in. Unlike my perennial garden, these vegetables will require watering. I'm not happy about that -but the nature of our food plants is tender in so many respects.