“Self-watering containers make gardening easier - Baltimore Sun” plus 1 more

Self-watering containers make gardening easier - Baltimore Sun

Posted: 04 Feb 2010 12:22 AM PST

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Containers can take 'everything but corn,' blogger says

Susan Reimer On Gardening

February 4, 2010

Containers are the answer for the vegetable gardener short on space or sunlight, or one caught in a tug of war with hungry critters.

"You can grow everything but corn in a container," said Kerry Michaels, who writes about container gardening online at About.com.

Michaels has grown tomato plants in recyclable grocery bags and old laundry baskets and lettuces in yard-sale colanders. But she says the introduction of self-watering containers has made all the difference.

These containers have a reservoir at the base and the soil wicks the water - and fertilizers - up to the roots in a slow, deliberate fashion, eliminating the drought-wet cycles that can stress any plant and cause disease.

"Self-watering changed my life," said Michaels.

That's because a consistent source of moisture might be the toughest part of container gardening. A downpour can flood your container, and pots can dry out quickly on a hot summer day.

Michaels doesn't have many of those warm days where she lives in Maine. But gardening in containers allows her to "chase the sun."

She loads up the wagons her friends and neighbors have learned to give her and drags her "gardens" in and out of the protection of the garage during early summer and in and out of the sunshine later.

I plant lettuces and spinach in containers on my deck because they are semiprotected from the early spring cold and I can move them into the shade when the weather gets hot. Michaels is an organic gardener and prefers organic soil mixes as well as kelp and seaweed and fish emulsion fertilizers that she applies every other week.

"You really do need to feed them like crazy," she said.

Fresh soil and containers cleaned with a mixture of water and vinegar or water and bleach are key, too. Diseases can winter-over in your containers. I plant my tomatoes in containers on my deck, where they are safe from a blight fungus that seems to be in my garden.

Gardener's Supply Co., as well as many local lawn and garden centers, will have the self-watering containers you need to get started on your vegetable container garden. But Michaels uses anything she sees. The larger the better, to maintain soil temperature and retain moisture.

Michaels' biggest surprise in container gardening? "How amazing the potatoes taste when you grow them yourself."

Which she did. In a bag. On top of a picnic bench.

"Containers allow you to control the variables more," she said. "And that includes the critters."

Next week: Vegetable gardening by the square foot

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Maintaining your plants using self-watering window boxes, drip systems - Washington Post

Posted: 03 Feb 2010 06:57 AM PST

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Fairfax

A: Keeping a window box going at a second home on the Eastern Shore will be difficult given the heat and winds. To solve the watering issue, you might use so-called self-watering boxes, which have a reservoir that needs filling only periodically. Gardener's Supply Co. (http://www.gardeners.com) sells one about two feet long that stores five quarts of water. Customers have commented on the company's Web site that they've been able to go a week or more without irrigating.

If you expect to be at the house less frequently, you can install a drip watering system with electronic controls, including a sensor so the system shuts off in the rain. Home centers and garden-supply companies sell drip-irrigation kits sized for specific numbers of pots, which work well when planters are clustered. To irrigate window boxes, you'd probably need to rig your own system using tubing that you buy by the reel or foot.

A third alternative is to use plants that can go long periods without watering, such as succulents. Plants suitable for non-irrigated green roofs, especially low-growing sedums, work especially well. Taller sedums suitable for perennial beds, such as Autumn Joy, are probably too floppy. Emory Knoll Farms, a nursery in Street, Md., that specializes in plants for green roofs, has a list of especially good choices on its Web site (http://www.greenroofplants.com). "Green Roof Plants," a 2006 Timber Press book written by the nursery's owners, Ed and Lucie Snodgrass, shows an even wider array.

Cliff Lowe at Lowe's Bayshore Nursery & Garden Center (http://www.lowesbayshore.com) in Stevensville, Md., suggests incorporating ice plants, which have almost neon-red or pink flowers.

All of these plants need fast-draining soil, so add some gravel into the potting mix. Even though the plants can go for long periods without watering once established, they still need care at first. You should consider starting them at home in relatively large pots and move them into the window boxes once they are established. (Just make sure the initial soil depth isn't more than what the window boxes offer.) Or plan an extended stay at the cottage early in the season. What a great excuse.

Have a problem in your home? Send questions to localliving@washpost.com. Please put "How To" in the subject line and tell us where you live.

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Home and Garden Tips

Thursday, February 4, 2010