Gardening Charlotte

Round Foot Gardening

You have heard of square foot gardening, the practice of dividing up a garden plot into squares and carefully planting each square with a desired crop?

This is round foot gardening, what I used to call pot gardening but because that leads one to think of Colorado and that one is planting marijuana, let’s just be a little more square about it all. Most of my pots full of soil are at least one foot around and no one I know has a foot that looks like a circle so I think we should all be good with this new terminology.

I have been planting basic herbs and vegetables in round pots on my deck now for several years; enough years that I prefer it to trying to tend a full garden. I keep telling you, I am basically a lazy gardener. I like this option because the pots are easily accessible from my kitchen. I can see them out my dining room windows, just in case I have forgotten a garnish or some other last minute fresh ingredient I need to add, and my squirrels look at least guilty as they sneak by stealing a cherry tomato.

Some basic gardening principles from full gardens apply here as well:

1. Don’t plant the same crops in the same pots more than two years in a row so make a note and rotate. I cheat: I take photos and date them to remind myself of what I planted when and in what pot. I use certain sticks and stakes, moving those around from year to year.

2. Be kind to your soil. Don’t let it dry out. Keep it healthy by adding compost, mulching, keeping it watered and planted with something when you are not growing something you want to eat.

3. If weeds grow and you haven’t planted anything else, leave the weeds. Volunteer cover crops are welcome and will keep the soil nourished in between your plantings.

4. Frost free dates are the same. Although Mother’s Day is our traditional USDA Zone 5b date, we may be mid-April this year. If you can’t wait and get an early start, make sure you have something to protect your outside crops on those nights when temperatures dip. Other pots, plastic, even old winter coats will work to give your tender greens a little protection.

5. Water daily. To make sure my plant roots are kept moist, I add plastic bottles with holes buried into each pot and use them to keep pots well hydrated.

6. Add crushed soda cans, old packing peanuts, broken terra cotta pieces to pot bottoms to help lighten the weight. Keeping the bottom lose also helps water to filter through more easily.

7. Mix vegetables with flowers to make pretty arrangements. Many herbs are edible so mix vegetables with flowers for pretty arrangements. Add violets and basil to a pot with a tomato.

8. Go to your refrigerator and clean out your crisper of sprouting onions, potatoes, celery and carrots and you are well on your way.

Charlotte Ekker Wiggins is a beekeeper, gardener and sometimes cook. Published by El Dorado Springs Sun once in print and online with author’s permission. Copyright 2017, all rights reserved. This column may not be reprinted, republished or otherwise distributed without author’s permission. Contact Charlotte at gardeningcharlotte at gmail dot com.

EASY START – Basil starts to settle into pots in my round foot garden, an easy way to plant herbs and favorite vegetables on porches and decks for quick and easy access.

BURIED WATER WORKS – Holes on the sides of plastic water bottles buried in the pots ensure that the soil gets moisture down into the bottom of the pots during hot summers. Top left, a sprouting red onion has been liberated from my crisper and now is growing in a pot on my deck. (Photo by Charlotte Ekker Wiggins).