I'm sitting here munching on the very last harvest from my 2022 container garden and thought I'd post a little looking back and looking ahead. I want to document what worked in this year's container garden, what didn't work, and what I plan to start, stop, and keeping doing for next year.
About my container garden
I have a 16 foot by 20 foot outdoor patio that receives full sun across most of the patio most of the day. I have, currently, five large pots that are spread around the patio and three similar sized pots located just outside of the patio area for a total of eight planting areas. There are also three very tall shepherds hooks for hanging baskets but I've historically reserved those for flowers.
What Worked In 2022?
Starting Items from Seeds - This year, I enlisted the help of my 7 year old great niece in helping me put seeds into pre-made seed growing pellets like these. I started them in my sunroom in early March and they grew very well. Of the 72 pods we planted, only 8 of them didn't germinate. This was both economical and added an extra element of fun.
Cherry Tomatoes - Thankfully, my very favorite crop was also my most plentiful. They grew vigorously and I picked an excellent sweet variety.
A "watering" system - I may write a longer post on this at some point but I purchased plain water bottles from the grocery and using the smallest drill bit I could, I drilled one hole in the bottom of them and then stuck them into the soil around each plant. Each time I traveled this summer, I filled the water bottles in each pot and gave each pot a thorough soaking before I left. With only one extra watering from a helpful neighbor one time while I was gone I kept the garden in decent shape all the way through the summer. Additionally, I have added enough hose and made it easy enough to work with that I can now easily get water via the hose all the way across my entire container garden every time I water. I still carry some water occasionally, but this is much more efficient.
What Didn't Work in 2022?
Overcrowded, undedicated pots - I didn't do appropriate planning of where all the different things I planted would go and therefore I had some pretty overcrowded pots where, for example, my cucumbers got completely crowded out by my tomatoes. I've seen container gardens that mix things together well but my experience last summer with dedicated pots was much better.
The Pre-Made Hanging Baskets I Bought - My sister's service group sells what appear to be absolutely gorgeous hanging baskets every year. Unfortunately, this is the third year in a row where they have turned in to a dry ugly mess by mid-summer. Next year, I'll just make a donation to her service group and decline the hanging baskets and make my own. One of them even broken this year.
A couple of locations of pots - I moved some pots around at the end of last year and I'm going to end up moving them around again for next year. I thought they'd improve the flow and look of my patio but they didn't.
What Will I Keep Doing Next Year?
- Growing everything from seed
- My watering system - I've fallen so in love with this that I'm going to take a little extra time as I prepare all the pots for winter and make sure each bottle is submerged well in the soil so that only the top where I fill it is easy to access.
What Will I Stop Doing Next Year?
- No more pre-made hanging baskets
- I didn't talk about this above, but I've tried to "stake" my tomato plants using the existing patio fence and some string. It looks tacky and my plants were a hot mess looks wise this year so I'll move to some sort of formal staking system for next year
What Will I Start Doing Next Year?
- I'm going to add a few smaller pots on the patio for flowers. I didn't like that everything on the patio this year was vegetables and I had to leave the patio to enjoy the flowers.
- I will do better planning of what will go in each pot and where I think each plant will do the best. There are very clearly a couple of areas that grow the best and so I want to make sure there is at least one pot of cucumbers and one pot of tomatoes in that area.
What did you learn from this year's garden? What will you do differently for next year?
