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Garden Fresh Tomatoes Ready To Pick

August 4th, 2011

Mamma Blogga

Yesterday we had our very first tomato from this years crop grown in our self watering bucket containers. It was an Early Girl with very tough skin. I was told that the toughness was due to the extreme heat we are having while another person said that is a characteristic of the Early Girls. Today we are having one of the other types we planted and hopefully it won’t have the tough skin. They might be OK for canning since you peel the skins off anyway but in a sandwich it wasn’t that great.

This years crop using self watering bucket containers

The green and red bell peppers failed to materialize again this year. NOTHING but leaves! However we do have some Hungarian bells that are doing quite well. I will only plant them next year along with tomatoes!

Hungarian Bell Peppers doing quite well in the bucket containers

Week Seven of our Patio Gardening

July 10th, 2011

Mamma Blogga

I have been quite pleased with the water savings since switching to self-watering containers this year. So far the only water I have used is rain water collected off of our roof into a 32 gallon garbage can. With the weather in the upper 80′s and mid 90′s these past few days, I have had to add water to the reservoirs about every three days. The reservoirs tend to hold about 2 1/2 quarts apiece so it shows that the plants are quite thirsty!

Self-Watering Container Buckets ~ Week Six

June 30th, 2011

Mamma Blogga

This is another update on my 2011 season using self-watering containers (litter buckets) that have no PVC fill tube. Instead, they have a 7/8″ fill/overflow hole at the top of the water reservoir. Near the end of the video I show how easy it is to fill them through the small hole. I used empty litter buckets last year with great success (due to my garden becoming too shady) but they were not self watering. So far this year I have only had to add water to the reservoirs twice, each holding approximately 3 quarts of wate.

Week Five Update Using Self Watering Containers

June 17th, 2011

Mamma Blogga

This morning I shot a quick video showing how well my tomatoes and peppers are doing in this years batch of self watering containers. Near the end of the video I show how easy it is to fill the water reservoir that does NOT require a PVC or copper tube in order to add more water.

Four Weeks Into The 2011 Growing Season

June 12th, 2011

Mamma Blogga

Plants are approximately 18" high after one month in buckets

Our earliest plants were put in the self watering buckets back on May 11th, one month ago. The following photos were taken on June 9th but with plenty of warm weather and rain, the plants are even bigger than what you see in the photos. Even the little seedlings that I thought about tossing, but decided to make two more buckets for, are thriving.

We have a total of 14 self watering container buckets this year.

The Early Girls and Celebrity tomatoes already have blossoms

: The Topsy Turvy hanging planters have cherry tomatoes growing in them

I thought I would include a photo of my Blue Girl Holly bushes that I planted exactly one year ago. Last year when they were first put in the ground, I planted tomato plants between them since the space was almost four feet. This year I won’t plant anything since they seem to be spreading out very nicely. If you look at the one plant on the right side of the tree, it is the only male plant. Earlier it had quite a number of little seeds on the branches but they are now gone and the bush looks like it’s touch and go. It may just be that it is more of a tree than a bush and has a leaner look. I needed one male to make the berries set on the females.

: Blue Girl Holly one year anniversary

Plant And Moisture Status After Three Weeks

June 2nd, 2011

Mamma Blogga

Today we drilled a small 3/16″ hole in the top of our self-watering buckets so that we could monitor the moisture at the top of the soil to make sure they were all ‘wicking’ properly. We didn’t want to keep poking holes next to the plants themselves so we added the tiny holes elsewhere in the lids. Below is a photo of the reading we got from our only double bucket container with the PVC fill tube.

Moisture reading from buckets that haven't had additional water added for over a week.

We took a short video to show how much the plants have grown. Some were planted back on May 11th, others around the 19th, and some little seedlings left over from an egg carton just a few days ago. Everything is going quite well and we are very pleased that we don’t have to water them every night. Today’s newspaper said that due to the excessive rain we have had recently, that we are in for quite a bad mosquito season. All the more reason to not have to be outside watering plants!

Two Weeks Into 2011 Growing Season

May 27th, 2011

Mamma Blogga

We took a few photos of our self watering litter buckets that were planted about two weeks ago to show you their progress. They spent several days back in the warmer garage at the beginning due to extremely low temperatures. The last couple of days have been very rainy so they have not used very much of the water in the reservoirs.

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We’re Using Self Watering Buckets This Season

May 19th, 2011

Mamma Blogga

With the weather finally getting up into the 70′s and 80′s we were able to get our tomatoes and peppers outside and into our new revised self watering (litter) buckets. We scrapped the buckets from last year and made new ones that will cut down on wasted water and also require a lot less time fighting off mosquitoes while watering them almost every night. So far we have Big Boy, Celebrity, Jet Star, and Early Girl tomatoes. For peppers we have green bells, yellow bells, Hungarian bells, and Carnival peppers. The cherry tomatoes will go into the upside down Topsy Turvy and homemade upside down planters.