Container Gardening

A few weeks ago, Angela Motta and I decided it would be fun to host a class on gardening in containers (pots, buckets, etc.). Angela's friend Alice is a professional gardener, and Angela arranged for her to come teach us a thing or two. Since I've had mixed luck with my containers over the years, I was eager to hear what Alice had to say.

Here's Angela preparing her little garden according to Alice's instructions. She included a tomato, basil, thyme, a bell pepper, and three marigolds (Alice said she'd probably need to remove a marigold or two as all the plants get bigger). I didn't realize you could cram so many plants into such a small space.

The class inspired me so much that I decided to create my own garden. I put in a tomato, two bell peppers, two basils, and a habanero pepper (Phillip was excited about that). Wish me luck.

In case you're interested, I'm including the info from Alice's flyer, plus my own notes from the workshop. If you have any questions, feel free to ask me. And remember, if you don't get around to planting a container garden this spring, you can always plant some lettuce in a pot this fall. It's fun to have a fresh salad waiting outside your door whenever you want it.

The notes fall into eight basic categories:
1) Four keys to success
2) Suggested materials
3) Choosing supplies
4) Potting instructions
5) Watering
6) Easy Fertilizing (I emphasize "easy" because this subject always used to intimidate me. Little did I know how simple the process could be.)
7) Troubleshooting
8) Miscellaneous Notes

Four Keys to Success
1) Put your garden where you will enjoy it and see it often!
2) Put your garden where it is easy to care for!
3) Keep it simple!
4) Observe your plants! Look them over often to enjoy their progress and to nip any problems in the bud.

Suggested Materials
Plants
Container
Potting soil
Peat Moss
Vermiculite
Newspaper
Pebbles, pottery shards, or foam packing peanuts
Wooden kabob skewers
Granular fertilizer

Choosing Supplies
- Virtually anything can serve as a container if it holds enough soil and has at least one hole in the bottom for drainage.
- Keep in mind that small pots and those made of porous material (like pottery) will need more frequent watering.
- Choose plants with similar light and water requirements for your container. If you buy a plant from a nursery, the tag in the pot should say whether it needs full sun, etc.
- Find out how big a plant will get so your pot won’t be overcrowded.
- Buy healthy plants with new growth.
- If you get multiple plants in the same container (i.e. three basil plants in the same pot), you can separate them and plant them in different spots in your big container.
- Avoid buying plants with discolored leaves or bugs on them.
- You may want to plan your container garden before you go to the store so you don’t go overboard and buy more than you really need.
- Add fun stuff to make the pot yours.

Potting Instructions
1) Place newspaper in bottom of container, then add a 1/2” layer of pebbles, pottery shards, or foam packing peanuts. This will keep soil from draining out the bottom each time you water.
2) Mix soil. You can buy straight potting soil and just use that, but Alice suggests mixing three parts potting soil with one part peat moss and one part vermiculite. The additions help retain moisture, and the process of making your own blend makes the project more your own.
3) Moisten the potting mix, then add it to your pot until the soil is 3” below the rim.
4) Arrange your plants (still in their pots) in the container to get an idea of where you want to place them. Keep in mind how big each plant is likely to get.
5) Starting with the central plant, remove it from its pot. Gently spread the roots out and place the plant in its spot in the container. Mound soil around the base to hold it in place.
6) Plant the other plants the same way.
7) When all plants are in place, fill pot with more soil and gently tamp it down.
8) Add more water and some fertilizer, unless the potting soil already contains it (the soil package will indicate whether you should wait a few weeks to fertilize).
9) Trim off any damaged leaves so plants spend their energy on healthy growth.
10) If one of your plants is much bigger than the others, you may want to trim it back so they start at the same size. This is purely aesthetic – the plants will be fine either way.
11) You may want to spray the plants with safe spray (something like this).
12) Add a reminder card for when to fertilize next.
13) Enjoy! Watch! Learn!

Watering
- Keep soil moist but not soggy. In the summer you may need to water once or twice a day.
- An easy way to test soil dampness is to stick a wooden kabob skewer a few inches into the soil. If it comes out clean, the soil is dry and needs water. If it comes out with some dirt on it, the soil is fine. Do this every day or two at first, until you get a feel for how often your container needs water.
- Pour water on soil, not on the plants themselves. Moist leaves can mildew or attract bugs.

Easy Fertilizing
- Use granular fertilizer which you sprinkle on top of the soil, where it releases nutrients over several weeks. Alice likes this organic fertilizer which you can find at Home Depot, but any all-purpose granular fertilizer is fine. Instructions on the package will tell you how much to apply, and how often.
- To remind you when to fertilize next, write the date of the next feeding on a little note, poke a skewer or stick through it, and stick it in your container. You may want to laminate the note (or tape it on both sides with clear packing tape) if it’s likely to be rained on.
- Most fertilizer packages display a three number series (such as 5-10-5). The numbers show the fertilizer’s percentage by weight of nitrogen, phosphorous, and potassium, respectively. Nitrogen is necessary for foliage growth (leaves, etc.). Phosphorous is important for producing roots and flowers. Potassium contributes to overall health of the plants.
- If you want to go the extra mile, fish emulsion does wonders for food plants (tomatoes, etc.). It smells terrible, though.

Troubleshooting
- If your plant is overrun with little green or white bugs, spray it with safe spray.
- If plant is long and gangly with small leaves, it needs more light and less fertilizer.
- If holes have been bitten out of leaves, check for snails or slugs. Remove them if you find them. If you don’t find any, spray the plant with safe spray (make sure you spray both over and under the leaves).
- If there are whitish stains on the pot, salt is building up in the soil. Soak the entire pot in water.
- If the plant is droopy, it probably needs more water and light.
- If spots or powdery areas appear on leaves, that is a sign of disease. Remove the affected leaves. If spots keep appearing on other leaves, you may need to remove the entire plant so it doesn’t infect anything else.

Miscellaneous Notes
- If you chose a large container, place it in its final destination before adding soil, water, and plants. It will be very heavy once it’s full.
- Full sun = 4-5 hours for a container garden (as opposed to 6-8 hours for plants in the ground.)
- Don’t use the same soil for more than two years. If you want to keep some plants that are in old soil, simply repot them in new soil. If they have a big root system, you may want to remove part of the root clumps so the plants can spread out into fresh soil.
- You can start seeds growing in straight vermiculite, then transfer them to soil once they’ve started growing. You may want to start seeds a few weeks before you plan to remove a spent plant.
- If you don't wear gloves and you want to keep your fingernails clean, scratch a bar of soap before you garden.
- Swabbing rubbing alcohol on plant stems can deter bugs (they dislike the strong smell).
- You can also swab rubbing alcohol onto your garden shears and trowel to clean them.
- A plant that trails over the side of pot can add dramatic flair.
- Marigolds and nasturtiums attract bugs away from other plants.

Hooray for nasturtiums!

O Remember, Remember

As General Conference approaches, I like to review talks from the previous conference to refresh my memory and make sure I'm doing my best with the counsel I've got before I go asking for more. As I scanned the titles of talks from October's conference sessions, I came across the talk "O Remember, Remember" by President Eyring. I couldn't remember what it was about, so I settled down to read it.

President Eyring recalled coming home one night to find his father-in-law working hard on a project to improve the Eyrings' home. As President Eyring reflected on this act of service, the Lord told him, "I'm not giving you these experiences for yourself. Write them down."

That very night he began keeping a journal of the ways God blessed him or his family every day. Each night as he considered what the Lord had done for them, he began recognizing blessings that otherwise would have been forgotten or overlooked in the hubbub of the day. The habit strengthened his gratitude and faith, and that of his family as he shared the journal with them.

This talk inspired me to start a blessing journal of my own. I keep it short--usually just a paragraph or two, composed in ten minutes at the end of the day. If I have enough time I add more mundane events and the latest Joy news in my regular journal (my "large plates," so to speak), but sometimes I just copy and paste the blessing entry into my regular journal and leave it at that.

I've been doing this for two weeks now, and I've already noticed two significant results. First, the practice has transformed how I see my days in retrospect. In the past, when I sat down to just write in my regular journal, the first things that usually came to mind were the challenges and weariness of life. Now that I start out looking specifically for the Lord's hand in my day, I find that my regular journal entries are much more positive. Either I forget about the negative things, or they just don't seem as significant as the positive ones.

Second, and more importantly, as I look for the Lord's hand in my life I consistently find it. Not a day has gone by when I haven't found something to be deeply grateful for. Often I sit down to write at the end of a dull or hectic day thinking not a single spiritual thing has happened, then as I put my mind to it the Lord clears off the debris of the day to reveal an event I had completely forgotten. Truly, if you seek the Lord you will find Him, and if you invite Him into your life he will gladly come.

Yeesh

You know you live in the twenty-first century when you write a word whose spelling you're unsure of, and you wait to see if a red line will appear under it indicating that you spelled it wrong.

Then you remember that you're using a pencil.

Yeah.

Quote of the Day - "Educated"

Sorry it's been a while. Somehow my blogging train got derailed, and I'm trying to get it back on track. I wish I had time to write more tonight, but I wanted to at least share this thought:

"It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it." --Aristotle

I am instinctively wary of anyone--conservative or liberal, zealots or atheists, and every stripe in between--who insists they have all the answers, and shows open scorn for the ideas of anyone who disagrees with them.

I heard such a person on the radio this morning. The Iraq War began fives years ago today, and NPR was interviewing a government official and a scholar on how things currently stand in Iraq and where to go from here. The scholar correctly noted that America's leaders started an ill-advised war because they reached a certain conclusion about Iraq and then stubbornly ignored any contradictory evidence or counsel. Ironically, he then demonstrated the same blind attitude himself.

He said the government is still doing everything wrong and the Iraqi people all want us to leave, but whenever the official presented statistics that contradicted his ideas the scholar ignored them or changed the subject. Finally the official gave up trying to reason with him because he obviously had no interest in anything that contradicted his theories (many of which seem based on his personal opinion rather than any evidence or research). The exchange was frustrating to listen to, and frankly it destroyed the scholar's credibility.

I think it is important to think things through and reach your own conclusions about them, but once we've done so it's important to remember that we can still learn a lot more, even from those we disagree with on some points. None of us would claim to know everything but we certainly act that way sometimes, and I think it's a tragic waste of opportunity when we assume that just because we disagree with someone about one important thing, they must be wrong about everything else, too.

A Year Ago . . . I Wanna Be A Redhead

Six More Words

If you haven't yet read the previous post, I suggest you look through it before reading this one. Don't worry--it's short.

I kept thinking about my "juggling act" memoir last night, and I reached two unpleasant conclusions: 1) It's an accurate description of my current outlook, and 2) I don't like it. It seems so bleak and repetitive, as if I’m a hamster on a wheel that keeps rotating faster and faster. I want my mortal experience to be full of love and inspiration, not just harried productivity.

Having determined that, I started thinking about what kind of memoir I would prefer to have. It didn’t take me long to come up with six words that describe what I want my life to be: “Joyful home; on to glory together.”

I want my family (myself included) to have a deep love for the Lord, for each other, and for life in general. If we can cultivate that, I think most other things will either fall into place or fade into the background. Even if they don’t, we’ll have mastered the things that are most important in this life, and the only things that really impact the next one.

That brings me to the obvious question: How do I get from the “juggling act” mentality to the “joyful home” mentality? I’m still puzzling over that.

Six Words

This is going to be short, but I found it intriguing and considering my recent blogging track record, if I don't write about it now I won't get around to it.

On the local public radio station, they're discussing a book called Not Quite What I Was Planning, a collection of six-word memoirs written by people from all walks of life (you can read the whole collection or submit your own here). Examples are "Well, I thought it was funny," "I still make coffee for two," "Not a good christian, but trying," "Wasn't born a redhead; fixed that," and "Cursed with cancer, blessed with friends" (that one was from a nine-year-old girl).

It made me wonder how I would capture my life story in a mere six words. I'm still thinking, but the first thing that came to mind is: "Juggling act - more pins each year." Fitting, but if that's the most that can be said of my life I need to make some changes, either in action or perception.

How would you write your (short) story?

One Year Ago . . . Baby Starts "Talking"

Tug of War

Motherhood is an interesting tug of war for me. Every time Joy wakes up early, or goes down late, or decides she's DONE munching Cheerios when I'm two (looooong) minutes from getting dinner in the oven, I find myself thinking how much simpler and more productive my life would be without this toddling element of chaos. I could make appointments without worrying about a sudden change in Joy's nap schedule. I could make plans based on a consistent, 24 hour day rather than an widely variable 2-4 hour day.

And yet, if I didn't have that element of chaos, if I wasn't a mom or if someone else tended my baby while I worked most of the week, I would miss so much. Productivity is a poor substitute for baby giggles and watching Joy proudly grin as she demonstrates for the umpteenth time that she has learned to clap. I don't think a cleaner house or a bigger lead in the rat race could be more satisfying than sitting at the park watching my daughter pass fistfuls of sand in and out of a bucket as if it were the most fascinating activity on Earth. To a toddler, it probably is. And for a few golden minutes, it's captivating to a mom, too.

What's more, at the end of this life and beyond, I won't care whether I dusted the shelves or ever got around to reading all the books on them, but I'll care enormously about my family and what kind of relationship I've formed with them. Frankly, life and eternity would seem sterile and empty without them.

I hope some day I will finally get it through my head that the busy things that tend to clutter my days are not the most important things in life and eternity.

One year ago . . . A Little-Known Benefit of Exercise