It doesn’t take a garden to grow vegetables

Published 9:00 pm Wednesday, May 2, 2007

My neighbor wants to start a vegetable garden, but told me she can’t.

Her backyard is in the shade. Her front yard isn’t, but she’s not sure a vegetable plot belongs there. And then there’s the grass issue: Her husband doesn’t like “mowing around things.”

Can she grow some vegetables? Of course she can, and so can you.

Most people think “vegetable garden” and a rectangle of tilled dirt with neat rows of crops pops to mind. After all, that’s the way many of us saw our parents and grandparents growing vegetables.

My mother did just that when I was a child. A man with a tractor rumbled up one day to our home on Whidbey Island and cleared the sod. Then Mom spent hours turning the soil with a pitchfork and fishing out rocks.

My father built a fence, but the deer and rabbits kept invading. Mom eventually strained her back and gave it up.

Geez, can you blame her?

Let me suggest a solution: containers. You can grow any vegetable in one. The trick is placing the container someplace it can get at least six hours of full sun. A front step, patio, deck or balcony usually works.

The wine half-barrels are deep enough for carrots, beets and other plants that need root room. I’ve grown sunflowers, tomatoes, eggplants, cucumbers, squash, peas and hot peppers in this size container. Large containers can get expensive, so I bought plain black plastic containers, the kind nurseries use for small trees, at a big nursery for a few dollars apiece. Beans, squash and cucumbers can run up a sturdy trellis attached to a big container.

Nobody says you need to go big. A few small plastic containers could be filled with lettuce, chard and spinach. If you love to cook, create a small herb garden in pots. Starts are available at nurseries.

In the past, I’ve planted my mom a pizza pot for a Mother’s Day gift: a patio box tomato in the middle surrounded by basil, oregano and parsley. You could make a salsa pot by adding a hot pepper and cilantro or whatever strikes your fancy.

A few extra tips: Don’t use straight soil from the yard; it won’t drain well enough. You’ll do better with a good potting soil. Put the big containers exactly where you want them before you put in the soil. Make sure a water source is nearby.

Homeowners can get free advice on yard care next month by calling 866-927-3847. Briggs &Stratton is offering to connect homeowners with experts from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. every Friday in May. Briggs &Stratton is the world’s largest producer of engines for outdoor equipment.

A Web site is offering online gardening courses. The site, www.learn2grow.com, offers some free features such as how-to articles. You have to pay $19.99 if you want to take a course called, “Creative Containers.” My view: Save your money for plants and take one of the gazillion free courses offered by local nurseries. That way you can interact with an actual person.

Find used building materials, paint and other things you might repurpose at this material exchange King County Web site: www.govlink.org/hazwaste/business/imex.

Reporter Debra Smith: 425-339-3197 or dsmith@heraldnet.com.