container gardening, raised beds...

[bornthrifty]

I have a sunny space next to my garage that happens to be paved right now, I am pretty limited with sunny spots, I was sort of thinking about growing some veggies up the exterior garage wall, by making boxes and having some sort of net or lattice to cling to


now see I want a lot of veggies,
containers limit the plants growth size? or do we just assume we can't make enough containers to get as many veggies as you would in a regular garden...

what I am asking is, if I grow beans or peas or something similar, up the wall will it be worth it, will I (is it possible to) get a lot of veggies or just a couple nice meals, I mean why bother if it is just a cute hobbie, I want to feed my family...

I have about 20 feet in lenght along the garage, I could make boxes of any depth, and have plenty of width space available too...

what I am trying to figure out is if working from containers will be satisfying enough, I don't mind making lots of them or should I just go to plan b?

 

[SKR8PN]

See this area???
It is only 8ft X 24ft, and this is going to be my greenhouse. I plan on raising enough food thru the winter(Ohio) to feed a family of two, plus 6 egg laying hens. You should also be able to do it in roughly the same area. I am only going to have TWO beds. Each one will only be 3ft x 24ft and about 8 inches deep.

 

[lupinfarm]

Ohhkay, I'm going to suggest again looking at the SFGarden website, they have a small forum as well but there are lots of us on here and on TEG that use raised beds as well!

Peas do well in raised beds from my experience, and the standard size to start at is often 6" deep. You'd use a 2x6" piece of wood. To get that true 6" depth, I'd try looking for rough cut wood. Pine is fine, and will hold up quite well over the years unsealed, but you can paint it to help it last longer.

These are my pea beds, they're 2ft wide by 10ft long. You would probably be planting only on one side of the bed, but if you have a 20ft area, that's quite a sizeable chunk of space. I've planted my peas pretty close together, I want it to be like a mad wall of peas, and I can thin as necessary. Last year we only had 4 or 5 pea plants and had a couple quarts of peas, not a lot, this year we expect much more using 2 beds.

I plant my peas on either side of the trellis, so although we have a 10ft bed, we have planted 20ft of peas per bed. Total I have 40ft of peas going in, I've planted one whole bed now (20ft), and I'll plant 10 more feet in April, and 10 more feet in May. Hoping this all works out lol.

 

[bornthrifty]

these photos are great! and encouraging

I was just getting ready to make some great big raised beds and then got sort of nervous that I wont yield enough food to be worth while,

I am going to try out several approaches now, (including some raised beds) and sort of find what I can grow best on my property

thanks again!

 

[savingdogs]

Plant a few sure-fire winners. Zucchini, radishes and chives, basil and tomatos all grow really well for me and supplement the kitchen well.

I have had mixed luck with other plants because our growing season is short. So I haven't done that well feeding the family.

 

[Ldychef2k]

This is my first real year of gardening. I started late spring last year with some tomatoes and peppers in containers. I had no idea what I was doing, and planted them in one gallon containers. I harvested about 200 cherry tomatoes from 10 plants. I placed the containers on a table underneath a clothesline, and that is where I tied the vines. I considered that a small success, because I expected nothing. If I were to do it again, I would use five gallon containers and stake them. I only harvested 12 peppers on four plants. I am going to put both in the ground this year.

This year my garden is ready and I have made four 5x20 raised beds. They are very short compared to others. And they leak underneath so profusely that I can't walk down the paths for two days after watering. Buttressing hasn't helped. Except in one instance, where I buried the 8" boards two inches in the ground. They do not leak. I have planted potatoes in that bed, as well as in 15-5 and 7 gallon buckets.

In the following picture, you will see plants on a table on the right. those were peas which I planted in the fall, again in gallon containers. They refused to climb, so they may have been bush beans. I don't remember...newbie mistake.

I just completed harvest the first of this week, and I estimate that I harvested 50 plus pods from each plant. It was a rousing success for such a small container. The vines hung down over the table instead of climbing.

Last year, I tried two 5 gallon containers of white potatoes and two Rubbermaid tubs with sweet potatoes. I harvested both too early, but ended up with 40 small sweet potatoes and maybe ten white potatoes the size of marbles. This year, I have 15 sweet potatoes ready to go into the ground, not tubs. And I am experimenting with containers versus in ground on the potatoes, with purple and yukon in the containers.

I am just a lowly backyard gardener, but am trying VERY hard to see what will work and what won't. I don't expect to harvest enough of anything until next year, once I have learned all the hard lessons.