Container Garden Part 2 – The Shopping List

What’s the best part of any new hobby?

If you said “the satisfaction of finding a new hobby” you’re almost right! It’s the shopping bit that is the most fun, to get the things for your new hobby.

I exaggerate, a bit, but I was excited to go and pick things up to get started. Here is my shopping list and how I arrived at each of the items on it:

1) Soil – Since we’re working in a container garden, we have to make our own soil. I asked the BFF for some advice here, and she provided the following recipe:

Soil Recipe:
1 part perlite/sand
2 parts top soil
2 parts organic (or regular) potting soil
*may need to water the mix depending on the moisture level of the ingriedents

I would also need a big bucket/bin to mix the soil in, as well as a shovel to do the mixing. I had both of these items.

2) Tools – Hand trowel, maybe a hand rake? I got one, might use it at the end of the season to get roots and stuff out of my soil before winter. You could also probably consider a watering can a tool, so add that to the list.

3) Seeds – Oh the possibilities!

I knew I wanted to grow tomatoes and peppers, but I decided to get plants for those later in the season. They will be delivered the first half of May, to my house. Should be after the last frost by then.

Everything else, I really wanted to do from seeds. That meant learning about seeds, how to pick them, and what all the words on the back of the damn packages mean. I had a small list of things I wanted when I went in, but I really wanted to leave with everything! My list included:

a) spinach – can go into the soil now, easy to grow in containers, spinach is delicious
b) lettuce, preferably bibb – I can’t often find it in the store here, so I decided to grow it… we’ll see how that goes
c) beans – these were for later in the season, but might as well grab them now
d) basil – the shear number of varieties of basil is astounding, so I looked for one that liked small pots and had smallish leaves

I also ended up with:

e) radishes – they seemed so easy and the package made them look so tasty!

The pic shows the spinach, lettuce, and radishes I picked out. No organic option for bibb lettuce, sadly. Aren’t those radishes amazing!

The packets come with lots of information on the back (this is the spinach):

4) Containers – These were the hardest decisions to make. Grow Great Grub by Gayla Trail taught me that while anything can be used as a container for growing things, some materials are better than others. Plastic helps maintain water better, but it isn’t as pretty as, say, terra cotta. Glazed ceramic, etc are breakable and expensive, but they sure are pretty. Metal is good for moisture but those get hot.

Wooden containers are rarely discussed, but… so pretty. So I got those. Damn my stubborn aesthetics.

I also would need deeper pots for tomatoes and peppers later in the season. I got 2, I don’t love them. I’ll choose something else when the plants actually arrive, since I need 4 total. I went with plastic, cheap ones, which I am fine with, but when I went to poke holes in them for drainage, they cracked!

Finally, I wanted to get a small indoor greenhouse setup for growing the basil and trying to start beans inside. I got a 36-hole greenhouse from Burpee.
It came with little pods of dirt and fertilizer that you rehydrate and shove seeds in to. I can do that.

5) Fertilizer – Organic food for vegetables, which one I chose I already forgot. It had the words organic, vegetable and tomato, and fertilizer. Check.

Let’s summarize:

Potting soil
Top soil
Perlite or sand
Hand trowel
Hand rake
Watering can
Seeds (spinach, lettuce, beans, basil, and radishes)
Plants (ordered them now for delivery later in the season)
Containers for aforementioned plants
Mini greenhouse
Fertilizer

The good news is that a lot of this is re-useable year after year. I think you can re-energize the soil a few times, and obviously the tools and containers can be re-used. You just need new seeds and plants every year!

I spent a total of about $140 on the list above, including the plants. Next year I imagine I’ll spend <20 on new stuff!

Next up, getting started, and after that… an update! Here’s a hint, we’ve spotted green inside and out!