Gardening

I'm a huge fan of Pinterest and have found many different recipes and DIY ideas to try out.  One of the pins that inspired me was the "Grow 100 lbs of Potatoes in 4 square ft."  Sometime in March, I recruited my husband to help me build the box so that I could try this growing technique out.  We built the box and bought purple and yukon gold seed potatoes and planted them.  I've been very excited about the progress, carefully watering and burying the new growth.  I've had a lot of new growth and have added 2-3 layers of boards to the box so far.

Potato Box, Spring 2012

Unfortunately, I just googled "growing potatoes in a box," and found a slew of videos showing unsuccessful potato harvests.  Do I cut my losses and let the box grow out but stop burying the plants in hopes of potatoes growing on the stems?  I'm thinking I probably should build small planter boxes and grow other veggies instead of adding to my potato box.  We will see what the harvest looks like... to be continued...

On the same weekend that we built the potato box, we decided that we needed  a raised bed so that we can plant more veggies.  We filled it with free compost from the dump, but got paranoid that there might be less than desirable chemicals and items in the compost.  So I nixed the idea of planting veggies for the first year and plant flowers instead.  Back in 2008 at our North Carolina home, I planted in raised beds with all compost with great success.  As you can see in the picture below, the random selection of flowers and plants were thriving and this picture wasn't at the peak of the craziness.  Side note: I also grew crazy gnarled potatoes in this bed by accident, but because the bed was watered with rain barrel water, we didn't want to eat the potatoes.

Raised bed filled with compost in North Carolina, summer 2008

This year at our California home, I planted ranunculus, snap dragons, and iceland poppies in the new bed and they are not doing so hot.  They're wilting and dieing off which is so sad to see money and effort wasted.  I think the difference between the bed in North Carolina and California is the quality of the compost, but I could be wrong.  I'll probably have to mix in some real garden soil into the bed either later this summer or next year to see anything grow successfully in the bed.

Raised bed filled with compost in California, Spring 2012

I did get some great poppy and ranunculus pictures from this bed before they died.  But I have a feeling the other flowers that come up will not be that fantastic.

Poppies and Ranunculus in California, spring 2012