Lynda, that's wonderful! Cars will be slowing down in the spring to try and figure out what you are doing, then slowing down all summer to admire the results! Maybe the county should think about putting you on the payroll for your traffic calming effects. :-D.

Lois in PA

Hi Lynda,
I may have missed it, but what are the strings for?
You have a lot of work cut out for you,will your hubby help with the planting?I sure hope so,lol.
Nice job,can't wait to see it in full bloom.
cAROL

Carol - the strings drop down and I clip them to the bags to keep the bags off the surface of the soil. We already had the wires up (we use them in the summer to support gourds, beans and such) and I figured that using drop lines to make a tent from above was easier that finding some way to prop up the bags from below.

We use droplines a lot here instead of propping things up. In the tomato area we use them instead of tomato cages.

With the winter sow bags, each bag has two clips right now. One clips two sides of the bag onto the string and keep the tent supported. That leaves two open sides that are my vents. Right now I'm using a clip to close the vents mostly up - similar to the sort of vent people have at the top of their milk jugs. As weather warms I can re-clip to make bigger vents, or if a late harsh freeze come through I can clip vents on more tender plants fully shut for the night.

With two clips, if I need to water I can remove the vent clip without messing up the sting/support clip and have plenty of space to water with a watering can.

As for planting out, I'll probably do most of the flowers in the main flower gardens myself because Pat will have his hands full with veggies that time of year. But if we need to use overflow areas I expect that we'll both drop everything and plunk and run as a couple until the job's done. Pat is actually the real gardener in the family (and descended from generations of professional gardeners) and I'm still only in my first 10 years of gardening - but around here the gardens are now a two-person job. We each have our specialties but we know each other's garden areas enough to swap back and forth with the work.

When the ground dries a little more I'll try to get up to a good hillside place and get a sort of overhead shot of the front yard. It will be fun to see how it changes as the year goes on.

Lois - if last year was any clue, in the spring they won't just be slowing down. They'll be pulling in the driveway thinking we must be some kind of secret garden center without a sign up!

Lynda

Here is a link that might be useful: droplines used to stake up tomatoes

Lynda, your use of the droplines is great. I wouldn't have thought of using the tires to corral some of the ws pots. Do you use them in your spring/ summer garden?

Wow, that was one humugous tree? Do you have plans for the stump or just haven't gotten to taking it out yet?

Are the mounds of leaves/dirt covering roses?

Thanks for sharing your photos. I like being able to see them as a slideshow.

mnwsgal - In the summer we use the tires for potato growing. We also have some others that we turn into raised garden beds by cutting one sidewall off. We plan to get more this year and putting in more raised growing areas in the center of the yard and edging the driveway.

We didn't have a great place to store the potato tires for the winter so I figured I'd put them to use. The tires and their gallon pots are also placed closest to the road for a reason. Precious seeds go in the three inch pots in the trays, seeds I have in abundance go in the pots in the tires. I doubt anyone would pilfer, but much of our front yard is set up so that thieves have best access to the stuff that's easiest for us to part with.

That's one of the reasons that tomatoes are grown behind the garage, and pole beans closest to the road. If someone really wants to hike through a 30 ft buffer of flowers to pick beans one at a time while our dogs announce them, well then they deserve a handful of beans. But not our tomatoes!

The huge sycamores were intentionally cut to leave the giant stumps. When we had them removed we wanted the stumps cut tall enough that we could use them to support our gourd wires. The two trees were each over 100 feet tall and the one closest to the living room had a big double trunk. Every time the winds blow or we get an ice storm I am so glad those trees are gone.

The mounds of dirt are from last year's vegetable growing containers. Each year hubby makes potting mix from our compost and some perlite and that goes in 5 gallon buckets for vegetable growing. The soil here is just too poor and now the compost heap is so big that we've gone to buckets or tires for all of our food growing. (An unlimited supply of free used five gallon buckets from friendly neighborhood scrap yard owner made that all possible.) Last year we had 220 veg buckets and this year we'll be going to 370 - 500 depending on how many more buckets we can get.

At the end of veg growing season I get all of the used veg container compost for my flower garden. We dumped this bunch when they were partly frozen so that's why they held the shape.

The shredded leaf pile is more organic goodness for my flower garden. That's from leaf vacuuming the leaves from the big oak in the front yard, and then just dumping the shredded leaf in a pile to break down a little before working it into the soil this spring.

I'm glad you enjoyed the photos. Hopefully I'll get plenty of flowers this summer and can join in with your flower a day photos in the WS gallery next winter. I've really enjoyed seeing all of your WS plants.

Lynda

"...Wow, that was one humungous tree!..."

That was my first thought! WOW is right!

Can you elaborate a bit on the clip system, and how you close the bags? I kind of understand how, but I'm not sure if I understand how tightly/loosely the bags are closed.

Thanks
:)
Dee

Thanks, Lynda, for answering all my questions. Potato tires was the first thing that came to my mind. In the mid60s every farm in my area had at least one tire flower bed in the front yard. Most were painted white to help deflect the sun's rays/heat.

I look forward to seeing your postings in the gallery section. You don't need to wait until winter. I had fun posting the flower a day. Was surprised at how many photos I had on this computer. My camera is a point and shoot and I need to learn more about its capabilities. I will be more intentional with my photo taking this year so they will be helpful to others. Have you checked out PV's ws collection on the gallery? Great photos.

Diggerdee - Karen and Karen are going to accuse me of making this way too complicated again - I just know it!

The big thing is that the two long sides of the bags are supported from above with string and a binder clip, and then open parts (the short sides of the bag) are pulled shut and clipped with a second binder clip. Then I keep an eye and make sure I have condensation on the inside of the bags and if a real cooker of a day puts seedlings at risk I can open the top of the bag to let everyone breathe.

Not a whole lot different than sticking any pot in a Walmart bag and tying the top of the bag shut by the handles - leaving a little breathing hole or two.

Lynda

Hi Lynda,
I enjoyed your photos and description. But I have a question....do you sell your produce, freeze it, can it or have an organic market? Do you do this for a living? Surely it can't be a hobby, it is too large for that, no? Maybe you answered this some time ago and I didn't see it. Sorry if you have already answered these questions. I admire your creativity with your bags, tires, use of tree stumps, etc.
Tina

amazing - you do have any old photos after planting?

Tina - this is all grown for personal use. We are both vegetarians and we grow most of what we eat. We don't can, but do pickle, freeze, dehydrate, or pre-cook & freeze winter meals with extra summer produce. In the past few years we finally got to the point where the only grocery store veg we buy are big globe onions and occasionally carrots.

We really like the quality and the taste of food we grow ourselves.

The flowers because I want lots of flowers. Saving seed from a nice big flower garden helps us trade for more flower and vegetable varieties. Some of the plants are medicinal. Some attract beneficial insects or hummingbirds. Some are just pretty.

Austinnhanasmom - we are expanding the gardens this year so no photos of the whole thing yet. I'll attach a link to an overhead view from last year, and you can browse my Flickr photos if you want to see last year's gardens.

Lynda

Here is a link that might be useful: Front gardens last year

Awesome ideas! Thanks for sharing them! Now I know what I can do when I run out of containers! ;)
The results are just gorgeous! Thanks for sharing this with us! :)

agirlsgirl - I hope the results will be gorgeous, but this is my first year winter sowing so we'll have to wait for sprout season to find out for sure!

Lynda

Hi Lynda,
I have really enjoyed looking at all your pictures.

When you plant in the buckets,say,tomatoes,do you also have to fertlize the plants,and if so, how often do you do this?And what do you use to fertilize them?
Is a five gallon bucket really deep enough to grow tomatoes and other veggies?I know this is your first year with flowers,correct?
Thank you for sharing such an interesting way of doing things.
cAROL

Hi Carol - This is my first year with WS flowers (or WS anything). Last year was the first year for flowers. Maybe I better double check what I have in my profile not that another year's gone by. :)

As for fertilizing, it's rare that we fertilize any of the containers. The compost is so rich that I honestly can't recall us fertilizing anything. Of course, each year we use fresh compost in the containers.

We don't even top dress with fresh compost during the growing season or need to use compost tea.

We do hand water everything using watering cans - so the container plants always have enough water but they don't have excess that would leach the nutrients out and wash then away. Summers have been so dry that mother nature hasn't washed out nutrients either. If she does give us a rainy year we might need to top dress the containers with additional compost.

Five gallon bucket is FANTASTIC for growing all of these. But keep in mind hubby comes from a family that did a lot of container growing and he can grow tomatoes in gallon pots without much problem. We did start with gallons, then went to two gallons, but then we found a source for free five gallon buckets.

The biggest thing is that containers dry out fast - but then again so does our ground when we're in drought conditions. With gallon pots there were some days that we'd have to water tomatoes morning and again in the evening. With the five gallon pots, in a drought year we need to water daily during the hottest time, less if we get clouds or cooler weather. We tend to spend a lot of time toodling around the yard carrying watering cans. (And we could spray water - but water here is pricey and hand watering puts the water exactly where we want it in the right amounts. It also keeps us looking at every single plant almost every day so we can give each one proper care.)

Then link below goes to all of my photos with the word "buckets" in them. You can see happy tomato, squash, cucumber, grape, bean and gourd plants.

Flowers are all in garden beds in soil that just would not cooperate nicely with vegetable growing. My garden currently favors flowers that like lean, dry soil but it should get richer as it gets each year's compost.

There's a bunch of photos of last year's flowers up there too. The link on my member page should take you to a bunch of photo sets, including the flower ones and some garden tours.

Lynda

Here is a link that might be useful: Bucket growing photos

Lynda, I love the photos in this thread.

(I must find a source of free 5gal buckets ....)

No kidding, I wonder who I could call to find free buckets. I don't know of any dumps or salvage around here. I am totally trying the bucket method for veg. this year as well as a new veg. garden. The buckets seem like a good solution to the sprawling plants.

Lynda - what an inspiration you are, especially since you are a newbie! I can't WAIT to see pictures of your flowers - won't that be so exciting? - you never forget your first year and i've picked up some great tips from you!

carrie :0)

There is a Hispanic man in our town that plants his front yard FULL of peppers and tomatoes, he really doesn't have a back yard to plant them in. He has been doing this for years. Last summer he erected posts and ran heavy rope between them. He tied up his tomato plants. I had never heard of this or seen it before. But it worked! I think the townspeople thought he was crazy, but I thought he was being very innovative, considering how much tomato cages cost and that they don't work anyways!!! He sells bags full of peppers for $3.00. He gave us a bag for giving his granddaughter an old piano that needed some TLC. They were hotter than anything I have grown-and we like stuff hot!!!! He also planted orange cosmos amongst the peppers and tomatoes-I am not sure if there was a reason besides that it added color to the garden. I can't wait to see what he does this summer!