Container Gardening Conundrums
Mar 23rd, 2012 | By Joel Salatin | Category: Ask Joel Salatin | Print This Article
Dear Joel,
We live in the Rocky Mountains — zone 4– at an altitude of 7800 feet. We have a short, unpredictable growing season and a large population of deer and rabbits. We currently have a container garden in a small “greenhouse” (white tarps over a frame) placed against a southern wall of our home, which has produced mediocre results. What advice can you offer on suitable heirloom varieties for our area?
-Kate Hamilton
Kate-
Oh, this one is out of my league. I’d defer to to Seeds of Change or Seed Savers — there are a host of good seed folks out there who know climatological acclimation of numerous varieties. We buy most of our seeds from Southern Exposure Seed Exchange, located just 50 miles away from us, because all their varieties are grown and selected for mid-Atlantic adaptation.
I’m sure a similar seed bank exists in your area. If you have trouble locating it, check with your nearest Permaculture support group. The Permaculture network maintains databases of seeds — they concentrate on perennials, but they certainly do plenty with annuals as well.
I’m thinking your white tarps may be too opaque. You don’t say in the question whether your poor results are due to temperature or sunlight, but a white tarp would affect both negatively. Get some clearer plastic and see if that won’t help by both upgrading the temperature and increasing the UV penetration. Container gardening has really come along with the urban farming tsunami and plenty of material exists out there to help you along with that.
One of the big problems with the container gardening is that you don’t have a big enough heat sink to stabilize temperatures between day and night. You may need to think about adding some thermal mass, even if it’s 55 gallon drums painted black and filled with water to set your plants on. The barrels absorb daytime heat and slowly release it all night. Plants do not like temperature extremes, so anything you can do to ameliorate these would be beneficial.
-Joel
©2013 Off The Grid News
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We lived at 8400 feet in the Rocky mountains in colorado….VERY short summer growing season….so…I dug a 3 ft deep hole about 12 feet long, built a plexiglass a-frame over the top and had an outstanding greenhouse, it would grow tomatoes about4 months! Had to put vents (closable) in the eves as it got too warm in the mid summer temps……well worth the effort, extended our growing season substantially!
Ive seen twin wall (insulated) polycarbonate 4×8 sheets on sale for as low as 32.00 a a local Improvement center. It would allow 80% light in and slow heat loss at night. Also make sure your containers have a loose mainly soiless medium. Soil will turn into a brick, and also compost has to be aged well or it stunts growth. In the late fall people here dump their container plants at the municipal compost, I pick up garbage cans full of free container mix and even an occaisonal plant or herb to overwinter in my greenhouse.