Container Garden Update — July 27, 2014

by A.J. Coltrane

Previous post here. July 28, 2013 post here for comparison.

We got tired of looking into the stacks of vegetables for the plant markers. (And tired of remembering which pepper was which.) We came up with this solution:

I think overall we’re two or three days behind last year. The biggest cucumbers are now 5-7″ long:

We harvested six cucumbers on July 28 last year. They were the same size or slightly larger than the fruit pictured above.

This year’s plant:

The basil got a serious haircut after this photo. The haircut produced 1/2 pound of basil:

The Brussels Sprouts are getting going. They’re currently in the least desirable location on the patio. We’ll move them to a better sun location when the warm weather stuff gets done. I don’t think they like super hot intense sun anyway:

The tomatillos. The “lanterns” are mostly just air at this point. The fruits on the insides are tiny:

The Glacier tomatoes are next to the Sun Golds. The idea is that the Glaciers would run their course, then the Sun Golds could take over the box. Nobody told the Sun Golds, they’re already leaning on everything. The Glaciers are getting close though:

The Gypsy peppers. We had good success with these last year, so this year we doubled down with two plants:

The Thai Hot Chili peppers and their “upside down” growth habit:

An overview looking towards the garage door. You can really see how we tried to “terrace” the tomatoes on the left. In the center is basil, peppers, and the tomatillos. On the right are peppers and cucumbers:

Overview from the Brussels Sprouts:

Shortly after these pictures the basil got moved next to the Brussels Sprouts and the pepper box in the center was pulled forward into better sun. One advantage of the casters on the boxes is that we can easily move stuff around to try to optimize the growing conditions for everything. In this case the premier positions are around the perimeter of the patio. Next year I think the Brussels Sprouts will get the short straw.