July 29,2020
Day 46: Outgrowing
So there is something I have found out with growing veggies in pots. It is wise to contemplate the size your plants will be in its adult stage of growth.
Take for instance cucumbers and zucchini. They need lots of room to grow. Where one grows all over the place (cucumbers), zucchini also need a good place to send their roots down, as well as bush out. In the case of these particular plants, I was running out of root space for them to grow well. So I got bigger pots! It was more expensive than I would like to pay for any pot, but thus far except for dirt and plants I had not invested much in this endeavor. It’s been only a couple of days, but I’m happy to say the zucchini plants as well as cucumbers are doing much better. I put both my cucumber plants in one big pot and zucchini in separate pots. Both are blooming and producing nice fruit.
I also repotted my green pepper plants and have several peppers coming on. Last evening I attempted to separate small seedlings of beets that were in clumps in their pot. I carefully moved each seedling around in the pot to give them more room to grow. My most difficult separation was green beans I had planted in window pots. I could see that it wasn’t going to be long before these plants maxed out their growing room. It’s amazing how many surface roots are around the plants and how their roots had intertwined with each other. Could I separate main roots and the plants survive on their own? That was the question.
That was last evening. Today I can report they are doing good so far. Surgery of separation was a success.
So today I encountered another dilemma. Along with the veggies I also have some flowers. Lantana are one of my favorite plants but I also have two gerbera daisies. I wondered why the mother mockingbird was squawking at me every time I was out by the garden. She has one of her babies hidden in my daisies!
Each day is a trial and error. I never know what the new challenge will be. I’m still trying to figure out the tomatoes. I know they like sun and lots of it. I tend to water too much when I see them wilt. Ugh! When it all comes down to the end of the day, I’ve been enjoying my little garden in pots. Like life it has its ups and downs with many challenges but also many rewards.