Any suggestions?

Share results and post-mortem.

Dan

Good idea - I need to keep track of what is planted and when. I started some acorn squash, just for kicks and giggles but they have been up for a couple of weeks - they should be close to ready by August.

Should be a good learning experience!

Mike

I got a good deal on pots, mostly 8-inch pots, but also have some large pots and many smaller sized. Tried planting lots of different seeds in the pots for the summer of 2011. No luck ... Weather is so hot here, the containers get too hot and the plants burn up and die. I have no shade and cannot afford to build anything to provide shade.

So this year I buried around 50-60 containers in the ground, mostly because the gophers destroy most of my best plants (Greens, Root Vegetables, Flowers and Herbs).

So far, the gophers have not bothered any of the plants in the buried containers ... In fact, gopher activity has ceased for three to four weeks now.

I still have four large tubs to bury (have four already buried, two planted). The large tubs seem to be working well, although our warm weather is only in the 80s-90s for now. Soon will have many days in the high 90s and triple digit, and the heat will last for many hours everyday .....

On the topic of Square-Inch Gardening .... I have been growing plants very close to each other for many years. This year is the best so far. Last year I quit growing plants that have consistently attracted too many bugs that destroyed the garden (Squash, Cucumber, Cantaloupe, Pumpkin, Watermelon).

That strategy has worked so far. No serious problems with bugs for two years now!!! In fact, this year I have seen more Ladybugs than I have seen in my entire life!!! I've also decided to allow the Wasps to roam freely in the garden. I'm thinking of ordering some Praying Mantis to add to the garden as well ....

I haven't had any problems growing plants in crowded conditions. Seems to help keep at least some of the plants cooler (the soil temperature in my garden can reach 135--140 Degrees F. (57.2-60 Degrees C.), which is much too hot for many plants, which start dying off around the end of March this year (the heat started several weeks early this year).

I think its called "square foot" gardening - and wordwiz - 5" pots are just not going to be big enough for most vegetables to live a productive life in. As someone on this forum wrote once - "it is like trying to grow a baby in a sock" - probably wont die for a while, but certainly won't reach full potential.

Glad you said that, mandolls. I thought I was missing something there.

Um...I had to re-read wiz's opening post a couple of times to be sure I understood. So not literally "square inch" but certainly not square foot!

Must cast my vote with mandolls. Super nutrient availabilty aside, the issue is more that the pots described are nowhere close to allowing enough room for roots, except possibly for the romaine, even the basil. Doubtful about the quinoa. I have serious doubts about the other crops.

Who has not had plants that have been potted on out of seeding flats that we did not get around to transplanting properly (either into properly-sized containers or open ground)? Within a few weeks or so they exhibit their displeasure with life.
But there's always the compost pile, happy to receive the fruits of my folly and procrastination!

I am not saying not to go ahead with your project of course and wish you all the best. Will hope for a summary of results in the fall.

You will get plants, maybe even a squash and cucumber flower or two, perhaps a stunted fruit. But I would not get my hopes up for much. I once seeded sweet corn in 24"-deep window boxes on the SE-facing 7th floor balcony of an apartment building. The stunted plants provided some shade to our picture windows, greenery, and a topic of conversation for visitors but I did not get any ears. The adjacent cherry tomatoes did well, though.

I also once planted a flower & veggie garden in the window of the bookstore in which I worked (tie-in with gardening, and then later, canning & preserving books). Used BIG containers, though (measured in gallons), and ran strings for vines up to the ceiling... It was fairly successful, actually; main drawback was insufficient light. It was inside a mall, beneath a big skylight so it got a lot of indirect light, but not enough actual sun. It did draw a steady clientele all summer who would come to check the progress. :-)

I'm actually having pretty good success with the plants in the buried containers. Kale is doing very well ... !!! Lettuce was doing nicely, until the heat wave around the end of March. Several types of Mustard (Southern Curled and Black Mustard) ; Dill, Fennel, Peas, Tomatoes, Peppers, Eggplant. Cosmos are looking good, but I'm guessing they will be stunted (the ones in the smaller containers).

I built three Earth Boxes with old scrap lumber to keep the gophers out. Everything in the Earth Boxes is looking healthy. Lots of Root Vegetables in the Earth Boxes and other containers (including large tubs): Carrots, Fennel, Radishes, Potatoes, Kohlrabi, Turnips, Beets.

Also have lots of Basil and some Dill, Parsley, and some Flowers (California Poppies, Cosmos, and a few others) in the buried containers. Still have lots of containers to bury ..... Will need to get those all ready for Fall - Winter planting, which I will start earlier this year, around the middle to end of August, through the first week of November ....

Are these bottomless buried containers? How big are they?
I am glad we do not have gophers in OH. Just voles, moles, chipmunks, squirrels, field mice... LOL

The containers I buried do have bottoms! If not, they would NOT keep out the gophers! I'm burying mostly regular planting pots (some clay, some plastic). Also I'm burying lots of large plastic storage tubs (10-15 gallons, some might be 20 gallons).

So far, the gophers have not bothered any of my buried plants containers. So for now, my best plants are safe ..... I may have killed off some of the gophers though with the various methods I've tried (rat poison, gopher poison in the holes, and also put inside of Potatoes stuck in their holes, Juicy Fruit Gum, Spearmint Gum, Traps, Flooding, Flares, Smoke Bombs).

I once grew Cherry Tomatoes and Cantaloupe in one-gallon milk jugs! The only space I had to grow anything was our small balcony of our tiny apartment. I had the Tomato vines tied with Jute, so I could let the vines hang, then pull them in to pick the Cherry Tomatoes! Cantaloupe fruit was very small, but edible and delicious!

I have a "strictly greenhouse tomatoe" that I keep in a 10" pot. I keep it bonsaied. And it does well and gave me several tomatoes this winter. I have a pepper plant as well. Still, they would much prefer to stretch out their legs. Beans I would think would do well, as will your lettuce, and probably basil. (Beans don't like fertilizer and tho their roots are very stringy in the ground, they don't have a huge overall root system.) The squash tho....hmmm....I don't know. Squashes like to grow shallow and wide. They like lots of fertilizer and water, and besides that their favorite pasttime is cell-division. They love to grow big! I'm curious if a squash would do well.

This year I will Bonsai some of my Tomatoes too! All of my Tomatoes (Cherry and Pear) are Volunteers every year. I must have well over 100 Volunteer Tomato plants this year.

I will start planting my Bean seeds, hopefully, within the next week or so, and continue planting several varieties of Bean seeds until the middle of June. That will give them a good four to five months of growing.

I experimented with planting Bean seeds too early this year, in February. Was still too cold at night. Now the nights are in the 50s-60s, and days are in the 90s.