Strapped for space or just want your summer crop close at hand to tend or harvest? If you have a even a small deck or patio that has a minimum of eight hours of direct sun each day. you can easily and inexpensively have your very own Michelle Obama-like garden.
Anything you can raise in an in-the-ground garden, you can, within practical reason, grow very well in a patio garden. Sweetcorn, watermelon, and potatoes are probably a stretch. Pole beans, squash, tomatoes, peppers, onions, and any number of herb and salad veggies are ideally suited for container gardening.
And that’s where you need to start. Decide just exactly what you want to grow and how much of your space you want to devote to your “plot”. Determine the space also to suit your containers. Practically any container from five gallon buckets to glitzy porcelain pots can be used, just be sure they have bottom drain holes so you won’t drown the plants. Plastic pots with built in water-catching bottom saucers work well and are both inexpensive, colorful, and durable. Whatever you choose, get them large enough; 11/2 -2 gallon minimum and size them according to what you plant. Decks and patios radiate lots of summer heat and you need the dirt for insulation and root room.
Many deck farmers will need to reposition the containers for best, or often least, sun exposure, room for a deck party, or crop rotation as harvests occur. Plus getting the pots off the deck surface further helps with heat insulation and general housekeeping. So a simple roll around cart makes an excellent base to set the pots in. Set your pots on a flat surface with some grow-room and determine just how much area you’ll need.
Motor down to the local home and garden store and purchase treated two x fours, nails to suit, and four small casters. While there, check out their garden plants, soils, and fertilizers. Saw and nail the outside rails, then cut enough cross “stringers”, leaving 2-3 inches between for drainage, debris fall-thru, and nail them in place with their top surface 1/2 inch lower than the outside rails to provide a securing lip for the pots to sit in. Screw the casters to the bottom and, to add a little pizazz, paint to suit. Gosh! you didn’t think you’d be getting into THIS much work! But the cart and pots should last through many planting seasons. An old Radio-Flyer wagon from a garage sale is a smaller but simple and attractive alternative.
Hopefully, while at the store, you picked up your plants and soil. Spread a plastic sheet, mix the planting soil with recommended fertilizers, and fill the pots and plant your garden. Add tomato cages or stakes as the season brings your fertile plants to maturity.
Now you have your patio garden in an attractive and easy to maintain plot ready to provide a rich supply of salad veggies for the summer.
Happy gardening.
