beadyeyedbrat                                    The Porch Garden

2008

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April

Accusations have been made that I can grow anything from nothing. Only a slight exaggeration. This was just planted tonight from three small pots. One is a variegated spider plant, one is a green spider and the third an asparagus fern.

While walking through the condo complex, I found the two spiders growing among the landscaping. The gardeners are removing the parent plants so I took a baby from each.

The asparagus fern was an offshoot growing in the gap between plants and sidewalk that the gardeners clear out when they prune. So I dug down until I had the rhizomes directly beneath the little guy and pulled it all out.

All three were put into small pots until they had some roots. Today we saw this pot at a dollar store and bought it. At first I was going to put some succulents in it, but when I looked at the ones needing transplant, realized that they were all vertical plants and not suited to a hanging plant.

The Succulent Monster. All of these started as cuttings from friends and neighbors. Except the pencil cactus, which started as a bunch of twigs in a pot that I bought for .50 at a plant show. They went into small pots, usually just as a hardened-off leaf.

Each was put into its own little container, then bigger containers as needed. When I found these pots on sale for $5 each, I bought two of them. All of the succulents in the small pots went into one of them. and here they are a couple of years later about to outgrow it! I don't plan to repot them, since there's no place to put them. Hopefully the roots won't all be so wound around each other when I have a yard for them that I can't separate them.

An example of how the Succulent Monster began. Three of the pots have succulents in them, all cuttings or fallen leaves.

The fourth and largest pot is a small pepper plant with a marigold that somehow seeded itself. I was sowing some seeds a last month and this guy just appeared. Bugs that love peppers hate marigolds, so I guess it's serendipity. It's only one of two plants left from the Salsa Garden in 2006. The plants were healthy and fine until a bug infestation just destroyed them.

Rescue. This poor thing was in a hospital dying of neglect. T brought it home looking all yellow and scraggly. The root ball was bound and the soil around it had salt deposits, so I rinsed off the root ball until the water ran clear. This pot gave the root ball several inches on all sides to expand, so it was the right one. For a few months, it just recovered from the shock and let its roots expand, then it turned green again and started growing. My guess is that it's grown 3 feet since it came to us. It's almost as tall as I am now. I'm told it's a ficus benjamina but I'm not sure.

Merrygolds seedlings. About a month old. These guys are being planted in every pot that I can make room to help keep bugs off the veggies.

Future pumpkins I hope. Pumpkins you say? In that pot? They're called Jack Be Little pumpkins and will only grow to be about 2" tall and 4" wide. According to the seed people anyway. I can't plant until the end of May, so the merrygolds are in place ready to ward off pumpkin-eating bugs.

Future zucchini 1. Again, you ask...in that pot? These are called 8 ball zucchini and are round. They aren't supposed to grow as large vines as other zucchini, so hopefully I can train them round and round the tomato cage. You can see one large seedling and one that just appeared yesterday.

Future zucchini 2. A few merrygolds are planted and there's one small pepper plant that I pruned down to almost a stick in hopes of saving it. The poor thing is growing again and has three tiny peppers growing!

Pencil cactus and jade plant. Pencil cactus is part of the pot o' sticks from the garden show. The jade plant started as one twig and I got three good plants from it.

Another jade plant that started from the one twig. When I put it into this pot last year, it was about half the size. The pot is pretty heavy so the plant doesn't fall. Jade plants do well when root bound, so it will stay in this pot for a long time. Guessing I'll have to break the pot to get it out, but 'twas a Freecycle find, so not a big loss. Not a fan of pink anyway.

That's the garden and the plan as of April 2008. More pictures when the

zucchini start flowering and the pumpkins are sprouting. If I forget, email

me about the first of June okay? Seriously.

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