Pat Meadows wrote:



I've made a major container gardening improvement this year
- maybe everyone else already does this - but I had not done
it before now, so I'm posting about it.

With thanks to Mel Bartholomew, author of 'Square Foot
Gardening'... whose ideas I'm adapting. Useful book, btw,
IMHO.

Most of my containers are large black plant pots - VERY
large ones. They're round.

This year, as I plant each one out I am making it a cylinder
of 1" chickenwire.

The cylinder goes inside the pot, around the outside
circumference. The cylinder is pushed into the soil at the
bottom, and further secured by two big staples being pushed
through the wire and into the soil - these are long,
u-shaped things that you can buy at garden centers. (I
think their intended purpose is pinning down black plastic,
or row cover.)

I'm making the cylinders about two feet high - three feet
high in a few cases - or somewhat higher than the plants
will grow.

Now I can easily do the following (using clothespins and the
big staples):

1. Cover all the brassicas with floating row cover to keep
away the cabbage butterflies - Some control measures for the
cabbage butterflies are absolutely essential and I'm an
organic gardener - this is the control measure I prefer.

2. Cover pots with clear plastic if really cold weather or
high wind or driving rain threatens.

3. Cover lettuce and similar plants with shade cloth in hot
summer weather.

It's a pain in the neck to make a cylinder for each pot, but
I'll save them from year to year. They should last quite a
few years.

I'm already using them: I planted out four lettuce plants
and four bok choy plants yesterday and it's VERY windy
today. Now they're sheltered. I left the top and one side
open, but sheltered them from the wind.

I think this would work with any shape container.

Pat
--

That is a good idea.
I do like his book, although most of what he talks about has
been done by gardeners around the world for centuries.
Certainly in drier climates, where good soil and water are
very scarce.