Container Gardening Harvest - 2020
Our first container gardening harvest was a wake up call. We enjoyed the process. Maintenance is work of course but the product is worth it. When we decided to increase our little container garden and grow more food, I had few expectations. I knew that I wanted to grow more vegetables. The logical part of me also knows that success does not always happen without a few lessons.
Reflecting on areas of improvement will allow us to make some changes and increase the amount of food that we are able to grow in our containers. I have identified three major areas of improvement for our container gardening to improve our harvests for 2021.
Areas of Improvement
Seed starting (too many starts to fit under light)
Succession planting
Full growing season utilization
Seed Starting
I got too excited and started too many plants. In my defense, my intentions were pure. I was going to start and gift a number of plants to friends and family. Well…#Covid so…Nonetheless I believe there were too many plants for the size of light and space we had. Some of the seedlings were not getting enough of the light to grow successfully so we lost quite a few. From the ones that survived, I was still able to get the number for the amount of space that we had and also give a few away.
Succession planting in a Container Garden
As far as succession planting goes, there is significant room for improvement. Succession planting is when you stagger seed starting, transplanting and plant growing to where you have a continual supply to harvest throughout the season. Succession planting extends harvests. We did a terrible job of timing and replacing plants as their production began to slow last year.
Full Season Growing Utilization
During this super early, not quite part of the growing season time, we are going to try to grow. We are going to get some lettuce mix and radishes going. The plan is to get a few harvests off of the mix before we completely pull it out to transplant one of our main plants. We have no intention on growing these lettuces to maturity. Similar to when we grow the kale, we harvest the younger, smaller leaves. After which the plant continues to grow until the leaves are at a size where we will repeat the process and cut them again.
So how much did we grow despite? We grew nearly 8 pounds of produce in our container garden! Leafy greens, herbs, tomatoes, potatoes and carrots.
My goal for our container garden is always to learn. One day, I will be stewarding a much larger garden that will be large enough to feed my family and others. Building on the information that I learn now will be somewhat transferable to that garden; adding a layer to future gardening successes.