Oh My "Garden"

I am pleased to say that my barrel garden, and first attempt at summer apartment gardening, is going very well. I have 2 half wine barrels and several miscellaneous pots I ‘borrowed’ from my mom’s house.

In one barrel I planted Sun Gold tomatoes. The Sun Gold tomato is a type of cherry tomato that, rather than being super sweet like your typical cherry tomato, tastes like a regular tomato. They get their name, I can only assume, from their sun gold color. They are my personal favorite type of cherry tomato, and they have a very high yield in my experience. I have a tomato cage that the plant is quickly outgrowing, but that will be fine. If you want to go high tech, there are fancy tomato cages that are very sturdy and will keep your plants growing upright and give you better access to the fruits. They are about $15 each at Home Depot.

In the other barrel I planted 2 lemon cucumber plants. I have put a mini bean trellis to see if they will creep up it for better access to the fruits. I am also hoping that they will creep over the sides of the barrel.

Lettuce takes a very short time to grow, so it can be planted around things like the tomato and lemon cucumbers while these plants are maturing. Lettuce doesn’t like to be baked in the sun so you can put them in a kind of shady spot (they still need sun, not complete shade). I personally like red lettuce, but you can plant whatever kind you like. I bought the seedlings at the grocery store, so it was not out of the way at all. I plan on growing several crops of lettuce throughout the year.

The other various pots are stuffed with various herbs that I like to cook with. I have basil, sage, cilantro, thyme, oregano, chives more lettuce, and of course, mint. The oregano, thyme, chives, and sage will keep growing year after year (this is what they call perennial) so I do not have to keep going out and buying them every spring. I kept this in mind when I was planting them and placed them accordingly. Remember that mint is a weed and should be grown by itself in a pot.

I also added to my collection, a Meyer lemon tree. I got it as a birthday present and am very excited because they grow well in pots, which is perfect for my apartment garden. It already has flowers, which I am hoping means lemons soon!

Here is something to think about. I worked with this lady who wasn’t terrible, but had a way of talking down to people and being a kind of Oscar the Grouch type. I always thought of her as a kind of crazy cat lady. I came to find out that it was not in fact cats that she fancied, but her garden. One day she brought in several well kept scrapbooks of her garden, one for each year. Please note that I used the word ‘scrapbook’ not ‘photo album.’ These things were labeled for the seasons and plant types and had di-cuts, the whole nine yards. It was kind of my boost or inspiration, if you will, to think about her and her scrapbooked garden. I would think things like ‘at least I have better things to do than scrapbook my garden’ or ‘I have to go back to school so I don’t end up scrapbooking my garden.’ The question I have is; is having a blog about my 2 barrels I refer to as a garden at the same level as the garden scrapbooks?