Farm-fresh vegetables and herbs, from patio to dinner table

I hadn’t gardened since childhood, all those years ago in Ohio when my dad hailed a man unexpectedly driving a tractor down our quiet street.

“Can you help us make a garden in our back yard?” he asked.

Minutes later, the sod was turned and suddenly I had the responsibility of tending a row of tomato plants.

Decades passed.

No place I lived offered the opportunity for gardening. There simply was no space to do so.

So I watched my brother harvest fresh tomatoes, shallots and beets from his Snohomish garden, many of which ended up on our dinner plates the same evening.

That all changed last summer when I moved to a place in Edmonds with — voila — a small porch.

Through our cold and snowy winter, I looked at that empty space wondering if this was where I finally could garden again.

I made a few trips to gardening stores, but was simply overwhelmed by the choices: Herbs? Flowers? Vegetables? Containers or standalone gardening boxes? What about soil and fertilizer? How do I start?

So in mid-March, I signed up for a container gardening class at the Tilth Alliance. There, I got the basics I needed for container gardening.

Among their tips:

Different plants require different amounts of water.

Avoid watering leaves.

Don’t just look at the soil’s surface, but dig down to determine watering needs.

Remember that plant roots take up as much space as the plant you’ll see growing out of the soil, so ensure the container gives roots the room to grow.

It was too early to start most plants outdoors, but a few weeks later I came home with some strawberry starts.

Then, I simply had to wait until conditions were right to bring home other things on my wish list, such as basil and tomatoes.

As the days began to warm, I checked out the annual Snohomish County Master Gardener plant sale, held in early May. There, swarms of what obviously were experienced gardeners excitedly perused the trees, flowers, blubs and vegetable starts with the zeal of shoppers at a Nordstrom sale.

I wandered over to the rows of tables where tomato plants had been set out. Master gardener tomato experts sporting red vests and hats were ready to answer questions, even my most basic: What will work well on my porch?

They pointed to tomato plants called patio hybrid, known as good for container gardening, and said they would thrive on my southwest-facing porch.

Next stop was a garden store. Exactly how big should the containers be? The bigger the better, especially for tomato plants, I was told.

Since being transplanted in May, they have sprung up to more than a foot tall, and now sport the yellow blooms that foretell the tomatoes to come.

One trip to the gardening store wasn’t nearly enough, of course. I’ve brought home several varieties of lavender, as well as mint and basil so I can clip fresh leaves to use in summer cooking.

A striped marigold — with their reputation for forestalling pests — sits shoulder to shoulder with my tomato plants.

Yes, I’ve had plants fail — a lavender start grew, seemed to thrive, then shriveled. But a professional greenhouse grower told me earlier this year: “It happens to us, too. Just try again.”

As our region continues to grow and development becomes more dense, it’s sometimes easy to forget that it doesn’t take much space for flowers, vegetables, and fresh herbs to be just a few steps away.

But there’s more to it than that. Bees buzz my lavender, marigold and salvia.

My little garden spot has brought me more joy than even I expected — a spot of solace, solitude and wonder.

Sharon Salyer: 425-339-3486 or salyer@heraldnet.com.

More info

Have questions about container gardening? Washington State University’s Snohomish County Extension has information available online at tinyurl.com/edh-garden.

The site also has fact sheets on just about any gardening-related question at tinyurl.com/edh-garden-facts.

Small-space gardening blooms and grows

How new is the trend of container and porch gardening?

“It’s kind of been there all along, but it is kind of an up-and-coming thing,” said Martha Clatterbaugh, a master gardener who lives near Bothell. “More people are living in close quarters.”

There are a lot of reasons people use containers. Some use them exclusively to grow things. Others, like herself, mix containers in with her deck garden.

Here is her advice to newcomers on container gardening:

— Start with something that grows easily and well in Western Washington, such as leaf lettuce. It grows quickly and you can pluck the leaves and add them to salads when they’re only a few inches long, Clatterbaugh said. “You don’t have to wait until the whole plant matures,” she added. And, if there’s an “opps!” gardening moment, with fast-growing plants there’s time to replant and start again. “You have to accept it, nothing is going to be perfect,” Clatterbaugh said.

— Herbs, such as basil, and other leafy plants grow well in containers.

— Some types of tomatoes and eggplants are bred to grow in containers, and peppers can grow happily in containers, too.

— Some plants require more sun than others. Cool-season crops like lettuce and bok choy don’t need quite as much sun as tomatoes, for example. Tomatoes are not the easiest thing to grow because they need a lot of consistent sun and heat. Some varieties of tomatoes that grow well in Eastern Washington may not do well here, unless it’s an exceptionally warm summer. “But you never know when you’ll get an exceptional summer, that’s why people keep putting them in and hoping,” Clatterbaugh said.

While porch and container gardening might not produce enough to cut your grocery bill, it has other benefits.

If you grow your own food, you know the kinds of fertilizer that’s used and whether you chose to use pesticides, she said.

“And you have all that joy of watching them grow,” she said. “That’s worth quite a lot, don’t you think?”

— Sharon Salyer, Herald writer