When is Best Time to Start a Container Vegetable Garden?

[imafan26]

I have an in ground system that needs to be redone. The manifold leaks and the diaphragms are not available. The company, Richdale was bought up years ago. I have to replace the valves now. I have six zones. Two are regular sprinkler zones for the grass and 4 are drip zones.

The alternative way to do this is to use a battery operated timer. It depends on your water pressure how long your lines can be. Battery timers come in single and multiple zones. The more zones and the longer it runs the faster the battery will be depleted. They are easy to use, you just attach them to your faucet. It is better if the faucet is close to the garden. The longer the run, the more friction and the less pressure you will get at the end. Most runs should be less than 200 ft. If water pressure is low, I would only run 50 ft. I use regular garden hoses as the main tubing until I get near the plants I want to water and then connect the drip tubing from there. It is cheaper and garden hoses are flexible. Even with a timer you still have to make adjustments for rain and increase the watering times as the plants get larger. The timer and tubing should probably be disconnected and drained or stored if you have frost.

It sounds like you will need wind protection and some kind of mulch in the containers so they don't dry out to fast. A SIP should always have something in the reservoir. So you only need to make sure it never goes dry. Wind breaks as Applestar mentioned or for a more permanent solution, you may need a windbreak around the garden.

In the ground you can try core or dry farming to make better use of your water.
Dry farming works if you have a good rainfall during the rainy season to tap into.
https://catalog.extension.oregonstate.e ... em9229.pdf

Starting a core garden bed. You may have to get your soil up to snuff before you can try this.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OBRocCwjFJA

[passingthrough4u]

Thanks for the reply. I meant restart the plants that look like they are dying from the pictures in my previous post, they are the plants in the orange plastic containers. I think they are dying from too much fertilizer. or not being watered properly / weather conditions.

[passingthrough4u]

Thanks for the feedback and resources pepperhead212, and imafan26. I will check them out later tonight. How are your own gardens doing so far?

[imafan26]

I have had a couple of weeks of rain nearly every night. So, I have had to do a lot of preventive fungicide spraying. This is more than I usually do. The organic cucumbers have been having problems the latest was hollow heart, from the rapid growth from the fertilizer and all the rain. It seems to be better now. The fruit are not growing as fast. I am in my main bug season, but so far, I am keeping up with it. I am in transition from the winter to the summer garden. This means I am switching to more heat tolerant varieties and plants. So, more hot peppers, eggplant, squash, tropical beans and spinach, sweet potato, okra, heat and TYLCV resistant tomatoes, herbs, and maybe peanuts. My geckos are very fat and I saw a couple of roaming cats in my yard. I think that is why my cat sneaked out of the house one day. He usually does not do that. If they keep the birds away, that would be good. The bees are busy and if I can stop spraying sulphur, the hover flies will be back.

[passingthrough4u]

Wow imafan26, very impressive. I was in a daze looking at that photo, I thought to myself... how is everything so green? where is this? then I saw that you are in Hawaii. I traveled to Hawaii once many years ago, always wanted to live there.

[imafan26]

Most of the container plants are on the other side of the main garden. It is hard to get a picture of the whole thing in one shot. I have over 50 containers, including two towers, and not counting the 4 inch starters on the 8 ft nursery bench.( I have too many, and I have to cull them). I have a couple of containers (zucchini, pole beans) on the side and front inner courtyard. The zucchini is a trouble maker it attracts pests to the cucumbers so it has to be isolated. I just needed space so I put one container of pole beans in the inner courtyard.

Containers range from 6 inch pots, herbs are usually in gallons, larger plants in 18 gallon containers or 48 quart totes. One tower has 36 pockets the other has 30 pockets for smaller plants. I have planted beans, chard, Tokyo bekana, peppers, lettuce, green onions and mizuna in them. They are good for shallow rooted plants that grow fast. I prefer the short plants. The peppers grew alright, but they grow better when they have more space. I also have wild tomatoes and bitter melon, and a pitaya that keeps trying to escape through the fence.

My main garden is 8x16 ft. I plant mostly annuals and green crops. Perennial and larger plants are in the containers. It is easier not to have to work around perennials in the in ground garden.

The front inner courtyard also has containers mostly ornamentals. Normally, I have a collection of about 300 orchids. But since there haven't been any orchid shows, I have not bought as many replacements. I think I have less than that now. Although, I now have multiples of the ones I have now.

I water nearly everyday, even if it rains, the smaller pots still need to be watered. That is why I say to start small and automate what you can, because the garden will need a commitment of time. I spend about 45 minutes just watering my yard everyday. I have a sprinkler system but it is turned off.

[passingthrough4u]

That is a lot of watering, I have enjoyed the time that I have spent so far on my garden. Even if stuff goes wrong or something bad happens it is all very interesting to me. Since this is my first garden, there is a lot of experience to gain and knowledge to consume.

[pepperhead212]

This is why almost everything of mine is watered from the timers, controlling the drip emitters, or drip lines, or drip tapes. When I plant them, either plants or seeds, I wet them with the watering can, but that's about the only time I water them by hand. Even those containers on my deck (that are all outside now!) have emitters on them, though I have to finagle with those adjustments, to get them right.

[imafan26]

I do have a watering system, but my valves need to be replaced. Since I have different sized pots and media and they are not aligned it is hard to use a drip system. Some plants will show drought stress in a day and a half and some only need to be watered once or twice a week. I did use the drip system when it worked, for the orchids on the tree. I actually use less water watering by hand because some pots can go longer than others. It does take more time to water and that is the down side of it. I have low water pressure so that slows things down as well. I can water my main garden and pollen and nectar garden with sprinklers, but I have to refurbish those zones first. I have turned off the water to the grass zones. I used to water the main garden with a faucet timer, but the ants kept nesting in the timer and breaking it.

[applestar]

Haha fully automated irrigation system is one of my dream projects. So far, it’s been pushed back due to
1) lack of technical skill vs. cost — easier, pre-designed set ups are more expensive, and I have too many existing bits and pieces that would have to be replaced to design a working integrated set up
2) lack of discipline— obviously if I could just pick one small section (zone) at a time and design working system that could later be integrated with additional zones, that would be ideal — I can’t seem to pick a favorite ….

etc. etc.


In a weird way, smart phone with timers and alarms have forestalled sense of “convenience”. — turn on water, hit the pre-set timer/alarm, then go turn it off when notified….

I do want a “system” the containers and SIP’s. — hoping to make progress on that this year — I have a “grand” plan for an aquaponics system integrating the pond and rain barrels and supplementing with automated fill from the faucet…..

[imafan26]

I thought you would have had a watering system already. I have a lot of parts. So, putting it together is not the problem. Rearranging all the pots would be. Not all of them are easily moved or would like the changes in light. I get more pots in if I put smaller pots between larger ones, so it is a space issue as well. Actually, it would be better if I just up potted the pot bound ones and they would be able to go a little longer. This is on my long to do list.

Unlike most of the other gardeners here, most of my plants are around for years, not just a season, so there are a lot of them that need up potting.

[passingthrough4u]

update everything is going pretty well, I lost a few peppers. right now, just hoeing the big garden takes a long-time darn weeds trying to steal other plants water or something like that. pretty much everything is up and growing and just a note since I'm new to gardening if anyone sees this, don't over water even though Colorado's climate is often unpredictable and hot / dry I think that killed one of my bell peppers but not entirely sure.