Love Apple Farms

Workshop: Container Vegetable Gardening

Whether you want to grow tomatoes in hanging baskets, like I'm showing off above, or you want to utilize a small space, our Container Vegetable Gardening class is the workshop for you. Learn all about how to successfully grow vegetables in containers. It's harder than it looks! From the proper potting soil to use, to a plethora of available container options, we also investigate space requirements, sunlight needs, the all-important fertilizing, and companion planting for maximum yield and results. We will show you how to grow more vegetables in less space than you ever thought possible.

This workshop is ideal for:
 - Renters who need to take their gardens with them when they move.
 - Those who have gopher problems.
 - Plots with poor soil or other disease issues. 
 - Apartment dwellers who don't have any ground to grow in.
 - Folks with large decks who would like to grow vegetables in pots rather than the standard landscape container plants.

This class is taught by farmer Cynthia Sandberg co-founder of the World Tomato Society, and is held at Love Apple Farms' spring plant sale, located at 5311 Scotts Valley Dr., Scotts Valley, CA. Read speaker and class reviews for Cynthia Sandberg, here. 

ALL CLASSES ARE HELD RAIN OR SHINE
AND REQUIRE ADVANCE REGISTRATION

NO 2021 CLASS DATES SET - EMAIL US AT [email protected] TO BE PUT ON A WAITLIST TO BE NOTIFIED IF WE SET A FUTURE WORKSHOP DATE. 

Please read our cancellation policy in case you are not able to attend your scheduled class.

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What class participants say:

"I just wanted to thank you for the great container gardening class. I really learned a lot and feel like I could get started. I took a class at another location and yours really was so much more helpful and inspiring."  -- Shiela V.

 

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Love Apple Farms gift certificates can be used towards classes, seedlings, and merchandise.  They are available for purchase here.  

Check out other classes at Love Apple Farms by clicking here. 

Photo credits: First photo of Cynthia and the hanging basket taken by Jamie Cole and originally published in Progressive Farmer Magazine. Second photo of the tiered garden boxes from Fraserside Community Services in British Columbia.  Third photo courtesy Darlene Marie.  

Planting Potatoes in Pots

What are we doing in the garden right now? A whole lot of stuff, but let's consider the humble potato.  We only grow fingerling types for Manresa.  They are tastier and more useful for the chef.  We can start harvesting them earlier than standard-type potatoes as well.

I buy my seed potatoes from Ronniger's in Colorado.  They are certified disease free, and that's important.  Potatoes, being in the nightshade family like their cousins tomatoes, peppers and eggplants, are disease-prone.  That's one of two reasons why it's not a good idea to take a sprouting spud out of your pantry and plant it in your garden.  The other reason is that potatoes purchased for consumption have often times been treated with an anti-sprouting agent.  Since you WANT your young potato tubers to sprout, this is not a good quality.  I like the price and the selection available from Ronniger's.

When the potatoes arrive, I cut up the larger ones (I know they tell you not to, but hear me out here).  When you look at a potato tuber, there are more eyes on one end.  Never noticed that before, did ya?  Well look at one next time, and you'll see I'm right.  So I always cut the tuber such that it's not exactly in half; the end with more eyes doesn't have to be as big as the end with less eyes, get it?  I will sometimes cut extra long fingerlings in thirds.  Small tubers don't get cut at all.

All the tubers get put in a single layer in seedling trays (open at the bottom for air flow).  I then put them in a warm, bright room.  The combo of the two gets the potatoes to pop their eyes out (or sprout slightly).  This process is called "chitting."  No giggles, now.  That takes a couple of weeks.  Since I put them in an open tray, and give them plenty of air space, the cut ends seal themselves.  If I had cut them and planted them immediately, I would run into some rotting issues.  That's the reason Ronniger's gives you instructions on not cutting the tubers before planting.  I guess they don't trust you to chit them properly.

I like to grow potatoes in 15 gallon pots.  That way, I don't have to mess up my planting beds when I harvest them.  I can also easily "earth them up" as they grow.  Earthing up is essential.  As the potato plant sprouts out of the ground and gets bigger, you need to add soil to promote tuber growth under the surface.  If you don't do this, then you get less tubers and risk the possibility of the tubers you do have being too close to the surface and photosynthesizing.  Green potatoes: bad!

First, we disinfect our stash of used pots with a mixture of one part bleach to 10 parts water.  This kills any over-wintering bacteria or viruses on the containers, and is a key step to keep them as disease-free as possible.  We also use brand new potting soil.  I like Sunland's Premium Grower's Mix.  This is sterile and doesn't risk imparting soil-borne bugga-boos into the potato pots.  Here's a pot being dunked and twirled in a disinfecting bath:

We then place only 4 inches of potting soil into the bottom of each pot. Lisette, our farm intern from UCSC, is on the job:
Once the soil is in the pots, we simply push five tubers into each one, about two inches under. That means there are two inches of soil below the tubers, and two inches above. The pots are then placed in our large unheated hoophouse and watered well. Although the ambient nighttime low temperatures inside the hoophouse aren't much greater than outside, the potatoes will be happier in there. Since it's late winter, we'll place a heavy frost blanket over the tops of the pots on nights that are forecasted to be frosty, and remove the blanket in the mornings. We'll water them perhaps once a week until they start to break the surface. When the plants reach about 8 inches tall, we'll add 6 or so inches of soil, water again, and let them grow. Another 8 inches or so of growth will trigger another 6 inches of soil added. This will be repeated until the potato plants are quite tall over the top of the container and the soil has reached the rim. They'll continue to need watering every week. When they flower, we can start harvesting.  We overturn a few pots every couple of days for the restaurant, dig through the pile of soil, and pull potatoes from the earth that are truly delicious.

These gorgeous Purple Peruvians were photographed freshly pulled last spring here at the farm. Courtesy Chezpim.

How About a Portable Veggie Teepee?

My previous post about the Painted Lady Runner Bean prompted me to talk a bit about the teepee I've planted them on.  I plant 10 or 12 bean seeds in each large 15 gallon black nursery pot.  I use good potting soil (not garden soil). The beans must be kept moist at all times while germinating.  They take about a week to poke through the surface, depending upon the weather.  Once up and growing, I  remove all but the strongest 6 plants.

The pots are arranged in a circle of eight, with a teepee of tall bamboo arranged around the pots and attached together at the top with twine.  The bean vines eagerly scamper up the bamboo. 

I love the pot teepee.  You can take it down in the winter and store it if you don't want to grow a cool weather climber on it.  You can set it up anywhere: on pavement, gravel, rooftops, or in other hard to handle areas, such as fertility-deficient soils, virus-infested soils, or gopher-ridden areas. You can also move it between seasons, to maximize the differing sun conditions between the summer winter gardens.  You can see I've got mine set up on mulch.

The teepee is also a great idea for renters, who may not want to make the financial commitment of building permanent garden beds.  I have heard from upset renters who have carefully and expensively nurtured vegetable gardens only to have to move out when the landlord must reclaim the property.  The disappointed tenants bemoan leaving their precious gardens behind, unharvested and unrealized.  The portable veggie teepee can be moved (perhaps not fully laden with 100 pounds of beans, but certainly the pots, soil, bamboo, and carefully cut-back plants to their new garden spot.

Other suggestions for what to grow on a portable garden teepee are: edible snow peas or fragrant sweet peas in cooler weather, cucumbers, smaller melons such as Charentais, gourds, or mini pumpkins.  Remember that the bigger the fruit, the less plants per pot.  Growing larger vining fruit on the teepee requires attaching the vines carefully to the teepee as they grow.  A bit trickier, but what a show-stopper!

My other tips would be frequent watering and fertilizing with a good all-purpose organic liquid fertilizer, and don't make the mistake of using pots smaller than 15 gallons!