Container garden update

We live in an apartment with an excuse for a patio. This thing measures about 10 feet by 6 feet and faces west. Not the best size or orientation for gardening. We decided that a patio tomato sitting by the tree outside our door and herbs in pots were about all we could do. Some of these are from our old place and some are new. 

 This is our sage and second rosemary plant. This rosemary is a bunch of starts from my primary rosemary plant, shown below. Rosemary, like most plants, is very easy to root.  When I need to use rosemary in a recipe I usually cut off about 4 or 5 six inch sprigs. I strip off about 3 inches of the leaves from the cut end. I use the leaves in my recipe then place the sprigs in a glass of water. After about 1 week the sprigs will sprout. By 3 weeks they will have a couple of roots around 3 inches long. I poke a hole in the dirt of one of my pots, plant the rooted sprigs, and what you see above is where they go from there.

 The nice thing about rosemary is that it is really hardy. When it gets cold around here (it does too!) it will hang in there through the cold. This plant is around a year and a half old. When we move to the new place we'll place it in our little backyard. Little is 26 feet by 12 feet. It will seem like an acre compared to this patio. I have just the place for it, right next to the sliding glass door next to the fountain. It will love that spot.Nice and sunny. I'll love the smell as I brush by it as I come and go. We will have to wait until October though otherwise it will be too shocked.

 This is our oregano plant. I think. It could be our marjoram plant. They look a lot alike. I always have to eat a leaf to figure it out. Sometimes I throw caution to the wind and add whatever I cut off. As you can see it needs a bit of a hair cut and clean up. I feel its pain. I too need a bit of a hair cut.

To maximize our space we bought a chrome shelving unit. It works very well, except that our strawberry plant likes to put out runners. If you look to the back of the pot you can see that one of them found a home in with the oregano. 

 3 weeks ago our basil plants were this size

10 days ago this was what our basil plants looked like.

This is what they looks like today. You can see that the tops of the plants have reached to the bottom of the shelf above. I felt compelled to start eating off these plants already. I'm doing it a service. Mmmmm.... basil. 

 

 Strawberry plants 10 days ago.

 Strawberry plants today.

Hopefully we can get to those red ones before the birds do. Not that I don't begrudge the birds the food, it's just that JR loves strawberries and he has worked so hard keeping these alive on a patio without a water faucet. That's right. JR carries bucket after bucket of water from the master bathroom to water these plants. Sounds like stupidity doesn't it? It is still worth it.

 

 These are some more of the herb plants that we picked up 3 weeks or so ago at the farmers market. Flat leaf parsley and lemon thyme. The thyme is going crazy and it is about time to give the parsley a cut.

 No matter where we move JR buys himself a tomato plant. This cherry tomato plant we got at the farmers market also. It was 6 inches tall then. It is about 3 feet tall and flowering right now. We should be eating tomatoes in another month. We've found that cherry tomatoes do very well in pots.

That is how our garden is growing right now. For those of you with very little space, like us, a container garden is the best way to go. Also, gardening is a wonderful activity for your children. We taught The Boy his colors in the garden. It was the only way we could keep him from eating the green tomatoes.

Have a great day everyone.

Love,

M