Container Gardening

Ever since we moved here I've wanted to have a garden. Goodness knows I've got enough room in our backyard, but I've been hesitant. Part of the reason was I didn't want to get docked on our deposit if I tore up the yard and the other reason was that we have clay soil and I would have to get the soil tested and amended before I could start the garden in the first place. I finally came up with a solution - Container Gardening. I took a class through the local extension office and they suggested using 5 gallon buckets. The great thing about it is that I got most of the buckets for free. I had to call up a bunch of restaurants, but it was worth it. I only was able to plant 6 buckets because I can't pick up the other buckets until tomorrow - and I ran out of soil. The kids helped me to clean out the buckets and Ben mixed my potting soil for me (40lb bag of potting soil, 40 lb bag of cow manure and a bag of compost - just in case you wanted to know). It was a great Saturday project - glad we got that taken care of!

Lexi and Sam decided that the buckets needed worms, so they dug them up and put
them in the containers (I didn't even have to ask them - they're naturals!)

Here we are filling up the buckets with soil. The bottom third of the buckets
have packing peanuts - so I could conserve soil and so the buckets
wouldn't get so heavy. The kids were such good helpers!

Our finished product. Looks like I've got a "Christmas" container garden.
In this picture I've got 2 Roma tomato plants, a Poblano pepper plant
(really excited about that one) and a few bell peppers in various colors.