2022 Greenhouse/Gardening Chronicles

[Mary Terry]

I have had only minimal success with tomatoes. The cherry ones tend to do better. I had a volunteer tomato that did amazingly well and somehow I neglected to save seeds or cuttings.

You could also try eggplant and hot peppers in the summer.

I no longer try to get any vegetable gardening done in summer months. There are some tropical vegetables that grow all year here, perennials.

I grow all kinds of peppers in pots, too. Summer vegetable gardening is not nearly as productive as winter vegetable gardening here. I'm still harvesting turnip, mustard and collard greens, two kinds of kale, Swiss Chard, and several kinds of lettuce and radishes that I planted in containers last fall! I have 3 big metal livestock watering tanks, about 2 1/2 feet tall, with a removable plug in the bottom for drainage, that I use to grow vegetables and herbs. I bought them at Tractor Supply for about $100 each and they work great.

I'll buy another one in May when I get some new baby chickens. I put the chicks in the tank with a heat lamp suspended above it to keep the correct temperature for the chicks to mature until they can go outside and no longer are vulnerable to cold. Then I'll move the tank to the backyard to join the rest of my gardening tanks.

I'm too old to do all the bending over, weeding and hard manual labor required by raising crops in the ground. Container gardening is so much easier!