Container Gardening

I am a lazy gardener. I don't like to weed and I don't like the Oklahoma heat of summer. But I do like fresh veggies and the process of growing my own.

Over the years I have tried to love gardening. Every spring my husband tills the garden. I get out and ho, ho, ho, and weed, weed, weed. I plant my nice little rows of seeds and plants. I try to consistently water. By July my garden has become a jungle. It is hot. I have lost interest in weeding, watering or fresh produce. I have yellow submarine cucumbers and I just don't care anymore.

So...this year I am trying container gardening, specifically Earth boxes. This is a plastic box with a water receptacle in the bottom of the container. I have only planted tomatoes and beans because I decided to do this only about a month ago. All of the vegetable plants were gone from the gardening stores except 3 tomato plants. I have two cherry tomato plants growing and bearing tomatoes already and one very scrawny Roma tomato plant that I started out in a pot with no drainage hole. (sigh) Amazingly, it is starting to put off new leaves in the Earthbox.

I love how easy this has been so far. We put dirt, fertilizer and plants in the box. We watered up to the line and just let it be. Each morning I add about 1-2 cups of water with the hose and it lasts all day. If it weren't so hot here, I might only have to water every other day. There are NO weeds! I love that the most. There is a plastic cover over the Earthbox to keep weeds out.

Before I bought these boxes (from Amazon.com-free shipping) I did some research on them. The Earth box was "invented" by commercial farmers in order to produce more in less space with less water and fertilizer.

I don't suppose the Earthbox will replace a garden spot in the backyard, but for this lazy gardener, I love walking out on my back deck and finishing my daily gardening chores in about 5 minutes.