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

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

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!

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Soil mixture supplies used in our self watering litter buckets

We added a cotton sock to the reservoir for wicking

We added large leaves to keep soil from getting around platform edges

Without knowing whether our mixture would ‘wick’ properly, we cut some old cotton socks in half, lengthwise, and added them from top to bottom. I had seen one person post a video using ONLY a cotton wick without adding any soil to the small container in the lower reservoir so it seemed like good insurance.

By days end, we had managed to complete six buckets with three Celebrity and three Big Boy tomato plants. We also planted eight pepper plants, four per bucket. We may be sorry that we put that many in one bucket but we were running out of our self watering buckets.

Buckets were then filled to the top with soil mixture

Tomato plants were added (Celebrity and Big Boy)

Today, we stopped by Ace Hardware and decided to add a few more plants to our 2011 crop. To add to our Celebrity and Big Boy tomato plants, we bought some cherry tomatoes, some Early Girls, and some Jet Star plants. To go with our Carnival and Habernero peppers, we bought some green and yellow bells and also some Hungarian Wax to use in our 2011 salsa sauces. The next several days will be busy making more self watering buckets since we can’t use last years buckets. I thought about trying to seal up all the drain holes in them but decided against it. I have a number of litter buckets in the garage with things like fertilizer and weed-and-feed in them. They will get a good scrubbing before using them.

Lids were labeled and installed along with a 5' stake

The rectangular holes that we added to the litter buckets seemed to hold the tomato stake quite well and once the soil compacts more from the moisture, it should remain solidly in place. I’m not sure what I will do if the plants grow higher than the stakes since it will be too late to install tall tomato rings or longer stakes. Last year we allowed the taller plants to lean on one another and that seemed to work well since the buckets were fairly close together due to the large quantity that I planted.

Six self watering buckets completed with tomato plants

Hopefully the predicted storms will hold off until the evening hours so that I can complete planting my latest purchases. Then again, I may not have my additional buckets ready in time. It takes less time to build them now that I have my system down pat and a lot of extra platforms already cut out. My favorite support under the platforms has become 1/2 of a large metal coffee can. Instead of drilling holes in it, I just use a ‘church key’ to puncture a number of holes along the bottom edge. The only holes I drill in it are the two for attaching it to the platform with two plastic wire ties. Being so large in diameter helps to support the weight of the soil in the bucket. We’ll post more photos once we have completed this years ‘bucket brigade’.

I love my 4 cubic foot AMES Lawn Cart

What I liked about the AMES was that it had four wheels so you weren’t required to lift it up to move it around. The cart at Aldi had only two large wheels at the front and the rear simply rested on a pair of reinforced plastic pads. It was cleverly designed, though, and had a circular ‘tub’ look to it almost like you were buying the lower half of a garbage can (nice and deep).

Four cubic foot AMES Lawn Cart filled with leaves

My lot is about 100×150 with a lot of trees so I have a lot of leaves to rake. The AMES lawn cart holds almost enough to fill the yard waste bags sold at local hardware stores. It also has four square recesses that are capable of accepting 3/4″ x 1 1/2″ wooden stake uprights  if a person wanted to add a bit more height for transporting loose branches, etc.

There is a convenient  small hand tool tray and it is so lightweight we had no problem picking it up to dump leaves onto the center of a larger pile.

Handy tool storage built into the 4 cubic foot AMES Lawn Cart

Every time we use it we wonder what we ever did without this little jewel! Sure, we had a wheelbarrow but this is so much more convenient to use. Today, for example, we used it to transfer rain water from a full garbage can to another location. Since it has no holes in the bottom it was the perfect lawn tool to do the job.

Rain barrel spigot installed to handle overflow

We modified our rain barrel so that it will no longer be spilling over when full and making our sump pump work overtime. Using a 3/4″ drill bit, we poked a hole in the side of the barrel and pulled an old, unused garden hose through going from the inside out. Around the hose fitting that remained in the barrel, we added some liquid nails to seal around the hose. Storms are expected again tonight so we will see how it works out, with excess water now being redirected down the fence line to a big old willow tree.

Overflow hose added to rain barrel