How much time do you spend gardening?

I posted a picture of my grow pole garden on this thread on April 12. Here is a picture of the same scene taken today. As you can see, things are a-cooking out there.The pole on the right has some winter sowed phlox with batchlor buttons in the top pot. and convovulus in the bottom pot. Behind it is a pole with dusty miller and petunias. The pole on the left has more batchelor buttons and begonia. Behind that is a pole of dianthus pinks and begonia. You cant see them but lots of chives have been poked hither and yon in the pots for their flowers. And there are 36 strawberries in the little terracotta stackers in the center of the table. Farther back in the photo, you can see a couple of sunflowers growing out of the top pots of two grow poles. I plant the grow poles intensively and they will take that because they have a fast draining grow mix and plenty of moisture and oxygen to the plants roots.

This thread started out talking about how much time we spend in our gardens. This grow poles have turned out to be a tremendous time saver for me. The weather has now become hot enough so that I can water all of them with an automatic timer once a day. I do that early in the morning and later in the day I check with a moisture meter and tap the few pots that need it with water. Stuff like the sunflowers and tomato's need that extra tap of course. During erratic spring weather I was walking around stabbing the pots with a moisture meter and hand watering where necessary.

I have 20 grow poles with 4 pots each which gives me 16 plant sites per pole for a total of 320 plant sites. Plus many of the sites have more than one type of plant in them. I poked onion sets into lots of the pots and have harvested most of them as green onions already. You can get some "free" small bok choi's by planting them with something else and then harvest them in about 30 days while the sites other plant keeps on growing to maturity. The same thing applies to many types of fast growing spring greens which will grow and then harvest out of the way so the sites long term plants can grow on to maturity. And you can do all this without bending or stooping.

You can start your own plants from seed and transplant to the poles or purchase plants from a nursery. It takes some planning to have new plants coming along to replace plants you harvest (in the case of vegetables) or pull out in the case of spring blooming flowers which have completed their bloom season. I pulled some "tidy tip" flowers out of the poles this morning so those sites are now open for something which I have growing in my nursery area.

My 'nursery' area where I continuously grow from seed is on table tops. Again, no stooping or bending necessary as I transplant from nursery to grow pole. It may sound labor intensive to keep over 300 plant sites producing at the same time but it really isn't. I mostly plan on plants that can be direct seeded and easily grown and plant more seed than I think I will need so I usually have more plants than I have plant sites.

The ideal place to start seed though is on some grow poles. They provide an ideal germinating site. Think about this: On a four pot pole with 16 plant sites and only 5 seed planted per site, you have 90 plants if they all germinate and they really germinate good on these poles. And you can easily plant more than 5 seed per plant site. Another example of how productive these grow poles can be with minimum labor is that the 4 plant sites from which I just pulled the "tidy tip" flowers this morning are now available for propagation. Im thinking I might go out there and spend a few minutes poking 20 to 40 seed in those sites. 15 to 20 days from now, I will have transplants. Now to decide what I wont to plant. Decisions, decisions, decisions. I'm just tired out from making all these heavy decisions. :-)

It has taken me about 5 years to accumulate my grow pole systems and I have probably spent much less money than other types of container gardening. My favorite grow poles are the EZgro's and you can see their web site here.

http://www.theezgro.com/planter_instructions/planter_instructions2.html

Mr. Jaywhacker, so sorry I got your name wrong. I read your reply and looked into the Ezgro websight. Sounds like the way to go. Have you tried planting cacti or succulents in them? Looks like It may work and they wouldn't get over watered. I have a time with cacti. Do the tomatoes get big or do you use a smaller tomatoe. We have ours in large pots and they do very well. Have to ave cages for them cause they get fairly good size. Will try to send picture when Camera batteries are fully charged.

Oh my goodness....I am so impressed! I never saw anything like your garden jaywacker. Very impressive!

Thanks ridesredmule for the computer info. I will try to get the emailing picture thing fixed soon. In the meantime everything else works great on the computer and I hate to give it up....even for a few days, but I guess I won't have much choice.

I dont know from nothing about cactus and succulents. :-) The grow mix supplied by EZgro is about 80% perlite and 20% vermiculite. If that is a good mix for what you are growing, they might work good for you. It is just about impossible to overwater something in that mix. On the same pole, I have grown some plants that are advertised as "pre-ferring dry conditions" and others that require more moisture without any problems that I could recognize.

I have been experimenting too much this year though and have some different grow mixes in different poles. Some poles hold more moisture than others and it makes it hard to water all the poles at the same time from an automatic timer. Next year, I think I will put 80% perlite and 20% coir in all the poles. EZgro has this growing system down pat and I should not have varied so much from their basic grow mix but I love to experiment.

Here is a picture of my tomato experiment this year......two early girl tomato's planted in the top pot of a four pot stack. I learned last year that tomato roots will run from an upper pot down through the drainage holes into the pot below it. These roots are already reaching down to the third pot down below and will probably have some roots reaching all the way down to the bottom pot before the year is out. They are really looking healthy and have some tomato's on them already but have suffered a couple of set backs because of some very erratic spring weather so I dont know what the final results will be. Tomato's ain't really my thang but I always try some. I have planted some other early girls in some large containers to compare to the pole grown ones. Here is a gallery of pictures of stuff other people have grown in EZgro's:

http://www.theezgro.com/gallery.html

I really enjoy reading this thread. I live in an apartment that does not receive any sun in the windows. And have thought that I was spending too much time on my indoor garden spot in the livingroom. When I arrive from work in the evenings, I check the plants and move or rotate them so that all have sufficient light because I use a timer that goes on early in the mornings or water as needed. I have started as of this spring, accumulating a variety of 30 plus cuttings and plants. Since I am growing them under plant lights, they are watched constantly (they are across from the sofa). Not counting the plant care research and looking at others' beautiful plants, I'd say that I spend about 3 hours daily on my plants and twice that amount on the weekends when I collect and use fish tank water on all. My small collection consist of Orchid Cactus, Tillandsias, Staghorn Ferns and a Begonia. So far the plants are still green and thriving, just no blooms yet. Just wish that I had more time to play in the flower pots.

Ivy

This message was edited May 29, 2009 10:30 PM

Hi Torrie, sounds a lot like me. I have plants in my window and am always doing something with them. Now plan to put some all together in a long window box...
I do have more light than you, and that helps...I only get flowers from the orchids and they do last for months to enjoy...get plants marked down to save a few $$.

Lakedust,Iam having the same problem with outlook,had my nephew over last sunday,he has not figured it out yet,and he is acomputer consultant,that was only happening when I wanted to email a pic.,Iam not sure how or what or why I dont have any problem here at daves.We live on a rather steep hill,17 steps down to the house about 70 ft downhill,or as I say its always uphill,every step I take up or down,i tell myself its a workout,squeeze,squeeze,that butt !!! its like cranking the compostumbler,tri & bicep workout 10 on each arm,its like a bonus,idont go to the gym,its right here.havent had to spend much time in the gardens this wk,we had some rainthe last few days,today its motorcycle days ,washed both last eve. ready to ride today.

jaywacker,Iam really glad you didnt forget to post new pix.WOW looks great,the towers are so cool,awsome,I have lots of green right now,kind of a lull in between ,spring color and full summer color,I do have lots blooming though,much better than a month ago!!

Beautiful, huggergirl! LOVE the rocks. Did you collect them on your property?

JulieQ,OMG NO,HAHA ,We bought them 20 yrs ago all 32TON,180.00 bucks,cant do that now days,I saw an add a while back 100.00 a ton,i have terraced beds all the way around the house ,we have a walkout basement type house on a pretty steep hill,ive throwing rocks around a long time ! ! I always say I have moved every rock at least 5 times now!! And Iam serious about that!!! THANK YOU THANK YOU

That is a beautiful arrangement with all the rocks. I am sitting here giggling to myself though. I have about that many rocks piled up in the back of my lot that were just surface rocks picked up when the lot was first built on. My ground is so full of rocks, I cant drive a 3 inch lawn carpet staple into the ground without hitting one. Rearranging your rocks has probably improved your health tremendously. Who needs stair steppers and exercise machines when you have stairs to climb and rocks to move around. :-)

jay,thank you,it has been a labor of love ,not to mention a smashed finger or 10,we love it out here,Iam finishing up another bed on the north side of the right now,I need more rocks ,go figure,I will scavage some from some where.

Lakedust: Check your OE settings and your antivirus settings as well. For OE, it might be the size of your pics need to be reduced as OE will not load them if they are too large. Or it could be a setting on your antivirus that is not allowing you to send attachments. Any problem sending other attachments, such as docs?