planting containers

There are many free ways to obtain containers for your garden, and some are better than others. Since our plan is to rent a house for another year or two to save a bit more money before we buy another home, I have begun to plan how I can have a decent yielding garden without a lot of money, and not digging up their yard. Here are some GREAT ideas I have come up with. Some are the courtesy of others.

The rubbermaid planter- This seems to be a PROVED planter for tomatoes and other large bushy crops, and the yield seems too good to be true. Many people swear by these. At $7 a planter (according to the author), I will be using these for tomatoes, eggplants, and any other larger bushier plants I choose to grow. I apologize, but I am unaware of who the genius was, but if you google "rubbermaid earthbox", it will come right up.

The shelving garden- Yep- down here in the south, you can grow lettuce and a few other veggies in part or even mostly shade. So putting together a cheap shelving unit (heavy duty, $14 at Walmart.com) and throwing together 4-5 square planters can yield you a solid steady supply of salads and herbs.

The raised BED garden- literally! How about this idea! Obtain a boxspring and metal frame. You can get these free, and in abundance, on Craigslist. Cut the coils and fabric out, buy a few pieces of plywood, including ones for the bottom, and frame the bed. Leave a 1/2 to 1 inch opening in the bottom of the frame to let the soil drain. Line it with whatever you can get ahold of, even heavy duty trash bags. This will protect the wood frame. Staple or nail the plastic to the inside of the wood, leaving the slit in the middle open. I would LOVE to hear about anyone who has tried this, or who is inspired by this post to trying it. This would theoretically provide 33 square feet of planting area, and consider what you can do with that! I plan on trying this with 2- one just a 1 level frame, the other putting 2 same size frames together to make a deeper planting bed for veggies and fruits that have longer root systems. I know that there is going to be very little light that gets through to the grass beneath, but I am intentionally looking for a rental with an "already ugly" back yard.

I still plan on letting my little trees grow in the grow bags. The price of the bags is GREAT, and I can switch out their bags as needed. I LITERALLY spend 8 minutes a day tending to my little "garden", and of that, 6 of it is admiring the ripening tomatoes or the mango's new baby's leaves. I bought 1 gallon bags to start my grocery seeds, and a surprising amount are growing happily in their bags. Much better than I expected! I am planning on moving them to 5 gallon bags, and as for my mango, she will go into a larger bag. When we move into our new house, I will be SOOOO happy, as I will already have a good amount of baby trees ready to thrive! When they grow into larger bags, they will be replaced by new babies.

I have no idea how big our yard will be in the next place, but I will have plenty of little trees to plant. Then I will sell or give away the ones that won't fit. ROI? 1000000000000000% Why? One grocery trip to make the kiddoes a great fruit salad yielded a great future orchard for me! IF IN DOUBT, TRY TO SPROUT! The worst that will happen, it won't grow. Use the fruits, sprout the seeds. If they, in a few years, yield great fruit, you are getting free food. If they yield terrible fruit or none at all, see what other use they can have. They may make a great firewood. But if your budget does not allow you to buy a $40 citrus tree, which mine doesn't, then plant the seeds. You have very little to lose.