Camouflage Gardening

No...my family is in no way affiliated with the armed forces. No, I'm not a survivalist, and I'm not into hiding my garden from passersby. So why the title?

I was trying to find a suitable color name somewhere in between green and brown to describe my thumb. I start out green - the seeds take off and lots of little sprouts shoot skyward. But my transplant technique needs some...care and maybe some fertilizer.

No pictures yet.

We started out cherry and some other tomatoes for a "Topsy-Turvy" hanging tomato planter. My 7 year old DD was quite a help ... almost more than I could hope for, if you know what I mean! *lol*

The cherry tomatoes came up well in a little four-place plastic (yeah, I know, sorry) container. It came with the kit, and we don't have a lot of options right now. I borrowed one of our two cake pans to start the bigger tomatoes. A total of 3 cherry and 11 other tomatoes formed the basis of our fresh food supply this season.

Thanks to the wind and rain we've gotten over the last two weeks (twice taking refuge in an empty downstairs apartment), most of the coconut fiber washed out of the four-spot, but they seemed to be holding their own. During the last week, every day brought a new sprout or two to the cake pan tomatoes. (Haha, I think I will call them that from now on.)

Yesterday was especially windy. We had put the four-spot inside the container meant to hold the finished Topsy-Turvy conglomerate. It was blown over and scattered in the parking lot of our apartment building. But all the coconut fiber (and the 3 seedlings) were in a 3-4" wedge on the floor of the front porch up against the wall. I have tried transplanting them into some of those little fiber cup things that you can put right into the ground. Two look to be doing ok. One could use a "little engine that could"-style pep talk (and some good gardening karma from my sisters and brothers out there).

I'd like to take the ones we don't put in the hanging container and transplant them up at my husband's Mamaw's house. She and her sons (and their families) have about 1/4 acre plowed up there and just onions, lettuce and maybe one or two other things planted right now.

We also have sunflower seeds, corn, pumpkin...and I think one other type of seed, that will begin their growth journey in the coming days and weeks. One of these weeks I even will hazard to promise some pictures...of the garden.

Happy tending!