The First of Four Planters: Garden Box Update!

The First of Four Planters: Garden Box Update!

Brought to you by: @Kraytive

True story: I used to kill every plant that I came in contact with.

Yes… Even cacti. I couldn’t tell you what I was doing wrong, but I’d think they were cute, take them home, take care of them to my best ability, and a few weeks later… BAM. Dead plant. My old apartment eventually had a graveyard of dead plants out front and I mourned the loss of every one of them.

After we settled in our new home, I was determined to try again on a larger scale. I spent hours on google searching for what I should grow, and how to grow it. Finally, I felt confident enough to begin and redeem myself as a Green Thumb.

We built our first planter back in Summer of 2018 as a trial run (here's how we built our planters), and let’s just say the first year of planting was a disaster. Starting plant babies from seed that late in the year was my downfall, and none of them had enough time to mature and bear ripe fruit or veggies before the Winter. I cleared out the garden bed before the frost and knew the second year would be better.

This time, I got to work in January of 2019, starting a lot of my seeds indoors under a grow light. I planned out which plants I wanted to put together that would be good companions and which seeds needed to be planted directly into the garden beds in Spring. I drew out a scaled version of our garden box on graph paper to lay out my ideas prior to planting:

I was determined to have a better year in the garden!

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Initial Planting:

Here are the plants I started from seed indoors at the beginning of January, with hopes of giving them a head-start before transplanting them:

• Pumpkin
• Summer Squash
• Zucchini
• Marigolds
• Nasturtiums

Many of the plants for this planter required sowing the seeds directly into the soil after the last frost. We had our last snow just after Mother’s Day, so I waited one week and planted the following seeds directly into the garden box:

• Corn
• Spinach
• Sugar Snap Peas
• Carrots
• Broccoli
• Cauliflower

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Overall Timeline:

Briefly, here are a few pictures that show the growth of this particular planter in just a few months! I couldn’t believe the growth that occurred from May to July, and how much I’ve learned along the way.

Early May:

We started with a pretty barren planter box. A lot of the seeds I had already planted, and I transplanted the pumpkins and squash into their own little mounds. I gave the peas a short metal trellis to start off on, and waited. And waited. And waited. I was pretty impatient around this time of the year, waiting to see if any of the plants would survive.

Mid-May:

They survived! I was officially a real plant mom! We had a week of perfectly balanced rain and sunshine, and the seeds that were below the soil spring up!

Late May:

The sugar snap peas started to grow above the small trellises we had, so I built a temporary trellis with twine and two pieces of wood planks. Little corn seedlings started to come up and the marigolds started to grow rapidly. The pumpkins started to vine and I started training them to grow towards the edges of the planter.

Mid-June:

We freshened up our planters with some fresh paint. The sugar snap peas grew over our makeshift trellis and started to flower like crazy! The spinach began to bolt in the heat, and the pumpkins and squash began producing some small flowers.

Early July:

Now that the zucchini, squash, and pumpkin vines were getting larger, I tied them down to train them to trellis over the edges of the planter. The spinach and sugar snap peas started to wilt in the heat, and the marigolds began to bloom. The corn started to become more prominent in the center of the planter, and I removed the nasturtiums and put them in their own pots.

Late July/Today:

I cleared the sugar snap peas, spinach, broccoli, and cauliflower from the garden boxes to allow more room for the remaining plants to thrive. The pumpkins started to vine quickly and I cleared a path for them to trail along.

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Veggies:

Sugar Snap Peas:

I love this pea because it tastes so good picked straight off of the vine, and it has been one of the easiest plants for me to learn how to grow! It also grows incredibly fast. I built a trellis with twine for them to climb, which worked fine for the short time we used it. I just had to keep tying the vines back up about once a week. Next year, we plan on building a bigger space for sugar snap peas behind the planters, and I will stagger the dates I plant them so I have a longer harvest time. We harvested in early July, and I froze most of them so I could use them in stir-fry dishes. I also collected a lot of seed by taking the peas from the pods and drying them in a paper bag. I’ll keep them stored in a paper bag until I’m ready to plant again!

Broccoli/Cauliflower:

I didn’t get much broccoli or cauliflower this year, and I’m thinking because I planted them too close together in this planter. I started some other spaced-out plants in another planter recently and they are already looking much more promising on production. I waited for my broccoli to go to seed, and then I cleared them out of the planter box about a week ago.

Spinach:

Spinach is one of my favorite things to plant! This year I wasn’t prepared for how large the plants would get after they bolted in the heat. I harvested more than I could handle and froze it… From 5-6 spinach plants, I harvested about ten one-gallon bags and I still had way too much left on the plants! I cut out the rest from the planters, dried them, and collected some of the seeds for next year.

Carrots:

I made an ‘oops’ this year while planting carrots, and accidentally spilled the tiny seeds in a concentrated area of the planter. I tried to spread them out as best as I could, but they were still too crowded in my opinion. Most of them have been a little stubby when I harvest them. Still delicious, though!! These little guys are still going strong in the planter, and I nibble on them while I’m working out in the garden. My son, Knox, also love to pick these!

Pumpkins:

(Before - Initial Planting)

(Today)

I saved these seeds from the Halloween pumpkins we carved last year, so these pumpkins are pretty special to me! I had to fight off the birds trying to eat my pumpkin seedlings for the LONGEST time. They ended up eating most of them, but luckily two plants survived! They grew slowly at first, but now some leaves are bigger than my child and we have at least seven large pumpkins growing! Some are just starting to turn orange. I cleared out a path for them to trail out over the side of the planter, and I’ve been training them to grow in the same direction.

Summer Squash:

(Before - Early June)

(Today)

My summer squash have been a little slow to grow, and I have been harvesting them while they are small. They have been so tender and full of flavor and it’s hard for me to be patient when they taste so good. I have two plants this year, but next year I plan on planting more.

Zucchini:

I have so much zucchini from two plants that I have been giving it away to friends! I love zucchini because there is so much you can do with it for cooking, and it grows incredibly fast! They are also excellent at hiding. I have been out in the garden several times, and all of a sudden I find a massive one that had been hidden for who-knows-how-long! This has happened at least three times so far, so I feel like a sneaky zucchini hunter every time I go out there.

Corn:

(Before - Mid-June)

(Today)

I planted this sweet corn throughout the middle of this planter, and in the past month it has shot up! It is finally starting to produce little baby corns on several stalks. The little strings just started appearing about a week ago, and now I can see the formation of little ears of corn throughout each stalk. Next year, I’d like to give it a little more space so I will likely plant a wall of it outside of the planters with some sunflowers. I wish I would have planted more! I’ll save some seed from these for planting next year.

Marigolds:

(Burpee's Best Marigold)

(Burpee's Best Marigold)

(Crackerjack Marigold)

These flowers have made my planters a bee sanctuary, which has been great for pollination and getting my other fruits and veggies to grow. They are also beautiful! I planted Burpee’s Best Mix and Crackerjack marigolds and they put so much color into the planter. Ever since I started planting these, I’ve noticed a decrease in the amount of bugs on my plants! Except for bees. I like the bees. They can stay. This year I am collecting the seeds from the flowers to re-plant them throughout the yard next year.

Nasturtiums:

I love these edible flowers because they are said to repel a lot of pests, but I honestly regret putting them in my planter boxes. They started to get too big, too fast, and started taking over my boxes and crowding my other plants. They would take over the whole world if they could! I took these out of the planter box very early on, and re-planted them into their own separate flower pots where they thrived for a long time. Then they started dropping hundreds and hundreds of seeds! You can bet I saved all of them! I’ll probably use these for landscaping eventually when we are ready to beautify the rest of our yard. Until then, I’ll keep putting them in their own individual pots.

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Update:

Well, there you have it. I've finally grown out of killing all of my plants. Planter one is thriving, producing a lot of squash and carrots, and hopefully some corn and pumpkins soon! Future updates on this planter will likely be much shorter than this one, but I had so much to catch you all up on this time! Until next time.

Have a kraytive day!

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