Day 1 (Really Day2)

May 23rd, 2011...actually, May 22nd was my official Deck Garden launch.  My goal, for this 2011 Spring and Summer is to catalogue, in great detail with both pictures and video, my humble attempt to grow a very small, economical, in both price and space, garden on my deck.  I'm going to do my best to provide you with regular updates on the garden's progress and document all my successes and failures in the hopes that I may be able to help just one other person avoid silly and/or costly (did I mention economical yet?) mistakes.  This is my first attempt at both Blogging and small economical Deck-Top-Gardening, so please, be patient with me AND this blog as I am sure the blog will contain as many mistakes and improvements as my economica...(ok, overkill?) garden.

So, without further adieu/ado here is a picture of my garden, Day 2:


Day 1 (Well, really Day 2.  Day 1 ended very late and my camera battery
was dying and it was started to cloud over and...anyway, Day 1/2)




















What's that you say?  That's not much of a garden?  Shame on yo...well, yes, I guess you're right.  The whole idea of a Deck-Top Garden is to reduce the amount of time and effort (and cost! ok, I'll stop), while, hopefully, maximizing the yield of your...ahem, crop.  Don't let those ground-plot gardeners get you down...you know who I'm talking about.  Those show offs with 1/2 acre plots, 12 horsepower tillers, enough weedkiller to fill a crop duster...you know the type.  The ones that say..."Oh, how quaint...you have a ...plant...on your deck."  or "Next year, why don't you just move the whole garden inside the house?  Then you won't have to walk Five Whole Feet."  Hah...nice try...I only have to walk three feet.  Anyway, my plan, this year, is to start small and see how it goes.  I'll have those same NNN's (Nattering Naybobs of Neg.) over in late summer, early fall and we'll see who's laughing and who's not wearing a back brace from picking weeds all day, right? am I right? right.

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BACKSTORY - Flashback - Year 2006.  Gas was $.10/gallon, Movies were a buffalo nickel and you could watch moving pictures on this amazing new invention called the Television Receptor.

...........(start dream sequence...diddledidledooo, diddlediddledo, diddledoo...and we fade out from our beautiful Present Day Futuristic Economical Deck Garden to our 2006 Ground Level Garden).....

The Date, May 2nd, 2006, Captain's Log 4043B point 2..."It was a beautiful sunny day on the planet Earth, third rock from the System Terron, Galaxy Milky Way.  Temperature, 72 degrees, wind moderate, beer cold.  It was on this day that I took it upon myself to create what these Earthlings called "A Vegetable Garden".  You can see the fruits of my labor here...

Tomatoes

Here...

Butter Beans, Peas, Carrots

Here...

Jimmy Hoffa

...and finally, here...

Dolly Parton...er, no Watermelons..er, same difference.



As you can see, a great effort was expended in created this meager 12x12 plot...and now, according to all the Earth Vegetable Gardening literature I have been able to get my hands on, all I have to do is sit back, drink my cool lemonade, hang out on my front porch swing and wait 60-80 days until my garden is ready for a bountiful harvest.

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Skip forward Three Short Weeks...

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Star Date, May 22nd, 2006, Captain's Log 4043B point 3...Dire straights...Two straight weeks of 90+ degree weather...Weeds, Growing out of control....Local children, Refusing to work, Citing strange Earth labor laws...Garden is a complete write-off...Leaving planet immediately before Weeds take over as seen here:

They Ate the Fence!

...and here...

Carrots?  Onions? Peas?  Miniature Redwoods?

...and, for the love of God, here...

Hmm...strange looking "Weed"s there, huh?

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BACK TO PRESENT DAY -

So, you can see now why we have moved to the Deck, right?  Ok, running short on time, so I'll fill the rest of this introductory post with lovely pictures of my soon to be Rockin', Flourishing, Deck Garden!  Woo Hoo!

 Let me introduce you to Ed1 and Ed2.  The wife used to put pretty, non-edible flowers into these two deck pots, but I convinced her to put in some edibles.  She took this suggestion very literally...everything you see in Ed1 and Ed2, according to the sales lady, is edible.  Except the dirt and the pot, unless you're really hungry:

Ed 1

Ed 2 (Ed2 has a little more personality, don't ya think?)

You'll never guess what's in here...That's right, Potatoes!  Red Potatoes to be exact.  With just plain old dirt.  I'll be doing a lot of weeding in this old half whiskey barrel.  This is my pet project...I just wanna get some useful spuds outta here.  If this fails, I may give up this project...just kidding, but I want them Spuds!

Spud Barrel

 

Same barrel...we should see some Spud Sprouts in here in a week or two.

Spuds from heaven (above).

I'll need to post some more pictures of this one but this will be an interesting experiment.  This is a watermelon barrel.

Juicy Dirt, er, Watermelon.

Ok, here we see one of my Planter Boxes.  This particular box contains, from
 left to right, Patio Tomatoes (really, that's their official name), Orange Pepper and Mr. Stripey (Orange-y, tomato with red stripes).  Remember, this is all experimental and if I had to guess, none of these three will live to see June (more on that later).  I'll have to get some better close-ups of these fellas.

Generic Patio Tomato Plant, Orange "George" Peppard, "Mr. Stripey, Orange and red Tomato.

The "Other" Planter box contains Invisible Gold.  Ok, I wasn't able to get to this box on Day 1 / 2...but the plan is to fill it with a nice topsoil/compost mixture and plant miniature sunflower seeds.  My wife thinks the girls will enjoy this, but this is another Planter whose contents may not withstand our summer.  More on that later (teaser!).

Look at the magical invisible Sun Flowers!

I suppose this last picture epitomizes this blog, "The Lazy Farmer".  This hose is right outside our sliding patio door and will be used to water the plants, day and night, until this Lazy Farmer installs some kind of drip irrigation system.  Until then, this will have to do.

Lastly, more than anything, I want this Deck-Top Garden to be fun!  My Three Girls, ages 2, 7, 13, will all chip in and help me nurture this garden to maturity.  The whole family can enjoy this and we won't have to be out all day in the killer sun, picking weeds!  Win, Win.


My next post should contain some more details of the whole production and some more close up pictures and, cross your fingers, the Invisible Sunflower Box should be planted!  Yay!