Container Gardening

Ignoring the mess...this is our back patio/slab that we poured many years ago so the kids would have a place to play basketball in the winter and where we set up our pool every summer. The hoop has since been retired but a smaller version of the pool will be up and cooling us off in a few weeks time (replacing the mound of one-gallon tomato seedlings in the center of the photo) .

The slab has become somewhat of a negative as we look for more growing spaces around the Garver homestead. Because it is one of the sunnier spots in the yard, and we don't want to jackhammer it out (just yet) we've been doing a lot more container gardening and are always on the lookout for castoffs that we can use to pot up a couple more tomatoes etc. The wooden box pictured above was a garage hutch that I spotted going into the neighbors truck headed for the dump. Placed on it's back with a few large drainage holes in the now bottom....ta da...a raised bed! Tomatoes in the deeper back section, peppers and butternut squash in the front/lower half.

On a side note ~ I found something to do with all those used canning lids I've been washing and saving. I've forgotten where I saw this idea or I'd give them credit:)