Garden On, Vashon

photo by Patty Campbell: mixed lettuces she grew in a wheelbarrow

 
There’s a lot of reasons you might want a container garden. You might not have land to call your own—or your sunniest spot is covered with a deck or patio. Your back may not want to bend to earth anymore. You have a move in your future and want to take your garden along.

Or like me last summer, you might find your garden beds stuffed full by May—with only 100 square feet, that’s easy to do. So we stuck our zucchini seeds in the top of tall terracotta pots, sprouted them with a seran-wrap cover, and grew happy plants that were surprisingly beautiful at eye-level—with no place for whopper-zukes to hide!

Vicki Clabaugh in Burton also started a container garden last summer, growing snap peas, leeks, lettuces, kale, chard, broccoli, and lemon cucumbers in 24″ black Costco tubs filled with cedar grove compost. “I kept throwing in seeds and had lettuce all summer,” she told me.

So when Patty Campbell, long-time Island garden designer, sent out a notice about repeating her Seattle Garden Show talk, “Flower Pot Produce,” I went to see just how much produce could be grown in containers.

What you need before you plant

“So what’s your favorite combo for a wine-barrel?” I asked her.

“Oh, that’s easy,” she told me. “A bush tomato in the center, lots of parsley around the base, some chives, some scallions, a dab of lettuce here and there, and basil— as much as you can plug in, purple AND green. And put a 5′ stake  in the middle to keep the bush tomato from falling on the other items.”

Patty’s been a gardener all her life, earning a B.A. in botany from Central Washington State and, after moving here  27 years ago, running a landscaping service that cared for many of the big container plantings you see around downtown Vashon. So she has strong opinions about what a potted garden needs.

“You need SWEN,” she quibbed. “South-West-East-North: that’s the order of light orientation, from the best to the worst. And you need a lot of dark loam—which most of us on the Island don’t have.” She recommended buying (“And don’t be cheap!”) a quality, organic potting soil that already has mycorrhizae and amendments—I won’t name brands, but you can figure out it—or making your own with your home soil, aged compost or manure, and a bit of lime to counter an acidic soil (“Moss is a good indicator of acid soil.”)

She also fertilizes regularly with Alaskan fish fertilizer at 2-3 tablespoons per gallon. And she deadheads spent blooms and flowers to keep plants from trying to set seed.

What kind of pots work?

She’s planted up containers of all kinds, in all sizes: bowls, garbage cans, baskets, boots, even old milk cans. Baskets need a coat of marine varnish to protect them. When shopping terracotta pots, look for the “cm” measurement that’s the giveaway the pot’s italian: she says they last longer. Old black nursery pots hold heat well.

“Potted plants need drainage, but you also want to keep them watered. So put a saucer underneath: face it down in the spring so it’s a little pedestal for the pot, then in the summer, turn it up so it will catch all your water. Bricks under your pot will help protect your deck.” She keeps slugs at bay with Sluggo.

I asked her about the wisdom of putting pot shards or rocks in the bottom of a pot, and she agreed you should use one or two. But when I asked about putting in packing peanuts to lighten the spot and not use so much soil, she laughed and said “I’ve got a great story about that. I tried that once when I was planting up some office plants. I used those biodegradable packing peanuts, and they ROTTED and smelled HORRIBLE, right under the nose of the bank president. Oh, she didn’t like that—and neither did I!” 

What vegetables grow well in pots?

BASIL: It likes to be hot. Square pots seem to heat up more than round ones. Pinch basil to encourage it to branch out. Plant purple and green ones: they look great together. Other herbs that work well in pots include trailing rosemary, lemongrass (“bring indoors in the cold months”) and chives in a smaller terracotta pot.

LETTUCE: It wants a pot half again as deep as the lettuce is high: for instance, an 8″ looseleaf needs a 12″ deep pot. Use ceramic or clay pots that you can move into half-shade by summer to prevent bolting. Lettuce comes in a wide variety of colors, from lime-green to “Merlot” burgundy, so they make great accents.

PEAS: A bit problematic: they need staking and cool roots, so put the pot behind others when the weather warms. Try shorter varieties such as “Maestro” that only climb 3-4 feet.

BEANS: “Bush beans are wonderful in pots,” says Patty. “Try them in long window-box style planters.” Pole beans aren’t unless you’re “a serious trellis and staking person” as they climb 8-10 feet high—and that’s in addition to your pot’s height.

TOMATOES: She recommends getting transplants at Pacific Potager. They can be grown either in a pot at least 12″ deep. Or, you can plant a tomato bush in a sack of potting soil: poke drainage holes into one side, flop over, make an X slit in the other and set your tomato transplant inside. She likes ‘Sweet Million’ grown in a big hanging basket: “makes harvesting easy and prevents the little tomatoes from splitting.” 

COLE CROPS: Easy in 5-gallon pots. Plant ‘Rainbow’ or ‘Bright Lights.’ Chard for some dramatic color. Pak Choy and other mustards would probably also work well. Vicki Clabaugh had good luck with broccoli that produced through the winter. And I grew extra red cabbage starts in 24″ terracotta tubs along with zinnias and marigolds; silvery-blue, they were gorgeous, dramatic, and when their leaves flagged in summer heat, they reminded me the tubs needed watering (the leaves would perk right up by evening).

BERRIES:  She showed us a wine-barrel planted up with strawberries. I have seen a hanging basket planted with strawberries: this puts the berries on display while keeping them clean and free from slugs. The smaller blueberries like ‘Polaris’ (to 3′ high and wide) can also be grown in pots: loving acid, moist soil but also good drainage, they can be given a soil rich in barkdust or peat moss and kept as watered as needed.

Jump-start your Spring Garden: grow in pots

One of the advantages, she said, of growing in pots is that they heat up earlier. And, you can chase the sun, pots in hand, if you’re really eager. Vegetables need at least 6-8 hours of sunlight every day.

Asked if this would be a good time to start, she said “It’s okay to sow in pots as long as you keep deer, raccoons, and birds away and keep the pots watered. It’s good to use transplants, too.”

Inexpensive pots include wine-barrel liners, available at Island Lumber and at DIG. DIG will probably drill holes in the bottom of ceramic pots if you request it. They also have nice “lifters” that match the pots you purchase. 

For myself, I’m going to dig out those old black nursery pots and paint them up wild. I’m picturing a curtain of ‘Sun Gold’ cherry tomatoes dripping down my orange concrete wall, with cobalt blue pots underneath stuffed with purple and lime-grass basil. Eye-popping as well as appetizing!

(Patty Campbell runs a design consultation and garden installation service called “Amazing Earth Landscapes”;  463-1502, or email her at pattyjeanz23@yahoo.com.)

Patty Campbell showing off Produce in a Pot at the 2010 Seattle Flower & Garden Show