Ghetto gardening

About a month ago I planted my garden, I was all excited and it was a fine looking plot of land when I started. Ample sunshine provided by my south east facing location and a chicken wire fence keeping animals out- set the stage for what was supposed to be a lovely garden. So excited was I about this piece of earth, that for the first time I dug ditches and rows and bought seeds instead of small potted plants.

I planted tomato and pepper plants and the rest seeds. Fantasies of all the cool free veggies filled my imagination as I wrestled with worms and weeds for real estate rights in my plot of land. At the end of it all I had planted three long rows of veggies. I had some left over so I decided to experiment with potted plants for the first time as well. I put these on my deck, I felt like they weren’t deep enough but nevertheless I planted basil seeds, an oregano plant and three different tomato plants on the railings of my deck.

Then the lawn grew, and grew until my backyard looked like a wild field, interspersed with garbage thrown by little kids who use the shortcut to the next street through the neighboring backyard. My garden was robbed of sunshine because my landlord whom I have never met does not cut the lawn nor have a working mower. Its cool to look at, but try having a game of Frisbee in the back yard. My garden is now full of weeds and low lying plants, some of them have fruits on them, but they are so small.

My potted plants on the other hand are enormous. The tomato plants are tall and healthy and sprouting flowers which means the tomatoes will be here soon. My basil is popping up healthy from my seeds and the oregano produces loads of smelly green leaves. So yesterday I decided I should transfer my garden veggies to the deck for sunshine purposes. Luckily my backyard is full of surprises and I found a bunch of things that could be used for pots.

I may call this ghetto gardening but I found one of those blue baby pools buried beneath garbage and leaves and decided to use it as a garden for my deck. I stabbed drainage holes in the bottom with a pairing knife and filled it with loads of dirt which was a big sweaty, shirtless mud streaked stomach job and am debating which plants get to go in. I also found some old recycling bins which could be used as pots.

If I get enough tomatoes I may even sell them, imagine the money I could make with this whole tomato scare going on and mine are organic as well.