Tools — 5 gallon grow bags (veggies and basil, cilantro, etc) and resin pots (for the marigolds and lavender); MG moisture control soil and black kow manure. My seedlings, I've added some MG soil, taken outside, and hoping for the best.
A big reason I'm trying this is because I have been diagnosed with reversible NAFLD and have been advised to try to follow the Mediterranean diet, which means more veggies. And store bought veggies have almost zero flavor these days.
by this_writer_is_tired
12 Comments
Following up: I have cages for the tomatoes and more bags/soil/pots are coming. I ran out of supplies and or energy yesterday.
Marigolds are for helping deter bugs. Lavender, for deer as I live near woods and there’s a lot of construction growth going on around me. Makes me so mad! Elimination of habitat means more feet traffic. Poor babies. Anyway, I’ve read that lavender is a deer deterrent and, even if it’s not, it smells nice.
I’m curious why the bags aren’t totally filled with soil? It’s going to limit the plants ability to grow a root system and they will not get as much sun being mostly inside the planter.
Im afraid your tomatoes will choke out the peppers plants planted in the same bag. Tomatoes grow much larger and faster and will shade them out.
Each tomato should be in its own 5 gallon bag. Get some more bags and soil and fix it while you still can. Just dig them up and move them.
Who’s gonna tell them
Please fill your pots with soil
You’re going to get like 4 tomatoes 🤣
You can bury the tomatoes with more soil any time over the next couple weeks. Just snip the lower leaves and gently fill the bag with more soil. You’ll likely get better yields and less risk of them drying out or lacking nutrients. Not the case with the peppers or basil, though. Those need to be repotted or at least moved when you add more soil.
Fill your bags to the top then replant. Your plants will thank you.
Hey OP, glad you’re getting into gardening. It’s definitely a labor of love and there’s a lot to learn. Most of us learn through mistakes. Please let me help you avoid these easy ones:
One plant per pot, no exceptions (for beginners). Tomatoes and peppers have different nutrient needs and watering patterns. One will drown while the other starves.
Your plants need more light. Tomatoes and peppers need at least six hours of direct sunlight a day. More delicate things like herbs will do okay with less light or filtered light. A hard covered porch is not filtered light. Filtered light would be under dappled shade of a tree or under shade cloth (which blocks a percentage of the UV).
You need to fill those bags full of soil. Leave two inches of headspace for watering. You’re robbing your plants of the chance of developing healthy root systems.
You should become familiar with fertilizers because you will need several. Start with a bag of worm castings (slow release nitrogen), a bottle of fish emulsion fertilizer (quick release nitrogen), and a bottle of Cal-Mag fertilizer for the inevitable blossom end rot.
We all applaud your undertaking and hope you succeed. Please don’t be discouraged by the constructive criticism in our replies. It’s a good thing you posted these pictures instead of just wondering a couple months from now why most of it failed. These are beginner mistakes that we have all made at one time or other, at least I sure have, and the mistakes can easily be corrected at this early date.
You Have been busy! 😉 you’ll want deeper bags for tomato plants. I speak from experience. I ended up transplanting because it got root bound and was dying. Also- The tomato plant can be buried quite deep to get a good root system. (The plant in picture 10 can be planted much deeper.)