Container Gardening: April Update

 We've started the first of our outdoor gardening containers this week! I had hoped to start early this year, because we had such a warm spring, but the last few weeks have been much more typical weather which included a few drops below freezing. So it turned out to be a good thing that I was too busy to start earlier.

We prepared our buckets by drilling some holes in the bottom for drainage.  Nick was in charge of the power tools here:

And I planted our herbs, lettuces, and carrots. I haven't planted the basil yet. The other plants will wait a few more weeks until it gets a bit warmer. The butter lettuce and tom thumb lettuce have started to sprout (I'll have to thin them very soon!), and the kale and spinach are still doing well. 

That means the following things have been planted:

• Carrots
• Tom Thumb Lettuce (sprouting)
• Buttercrunch Lettuce (sprouting)
• Spinach (early April, sprouted)
• Swiss Chard (transplanted)
• Kale (early April, sprouted)
• Mint (some transplanted)
• Dill
• Chives (some transplanted)
• Parsley (a few more seeds added)

And the follwing have yet to be planted outdoors:

• Tomato (seedling started)
• Peppers (seedling started)
• Eggplant (seed planted, but no seedlings yet...)
• Basils (some seedlings started)
• Cilantro (I swear this stuff hates me)
• Squashes
• Beans

I transplanted the swiss chard that we had growing in our windowsill garden rather than starting it over from seed. Unfortunately, it had started to look a bit rough because it seriously outgrew the 6 inch pot it was planted in, but I'm hoping it will recover in its new, much larger pot. I also transplanted the mint and chives; they haven't died on me yet, but we'll see how well they withstood the move after another week or so I think. I love all of the colors of the rainbow chard!

None of the plants are in their final position yet; we'll have to move them all around (and set out the shelving unit) when I plant the remaining ones. In any case, so far, so good!

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