Last year I went small. This year I enlarged. I've got two baker's rack shelves with small pots, a couple large pots, and a couple window box type planters with flowers, herbs and veggies. Plus I've got veggie plants in 2 - 5 gallon buckets that I put in plastic kiddie pool which acts like a plant saucer and keeps me from wasting water on the ground when I water from the deck (hey, I'm lazy and don't want to haul water down the stairs and around to the back of the deck).
The Deck
The photos below are of my Deck Garden. I've got them arranged in the order you'd see the stuff when you'd be walking from the ground, up the stairs towards the back of the deck where the stairs to the second floor apartment are.
I don't know what kind of plant this is. The lady who owns the art studio two houses up from us gave it to me after I helped her untangle and tie up to her trellis. She said it's a dahlia like flower. It was only about 6 to 8 inches high when I got it and I had originally put it in with my Hyacinth Bean Vines. It very quickly over took the vines and started crowding them out, so I had to move it to this bigger pot. It's got several buds on it now, so once they open I'll take more pictures and maybe figure out what kind of plant it is. The stairs up to the deck and our door are to the right.
The stairs to the ground are to the left of this corner rack that Judy and I found at a yard sale for $2. It's a little dirty and has a little rust, but rain will take care of the rest of the dirt, and the rust just makes it look ... well ... rustic lol. The top shelf has herbs: chives, parsley and dill that hasn't even sprouted so I don't think it's going to grow at all. Second shelf is the petunias the humming birds really seem to like. Above the corner shelf is what I refer to as the "Antiquey" Hummingbird feeder which is like the one we bought Judy for Mother's Day. The round plant stand I got for the cost of the gas I used to drive to someone's house and pick it up. Gotta love Freecycle! The planter on the top is a wildflower mix that's nice and green, but has only shown a few white blossoms. I keep telling Rick that I need a plant for the bottom shelves on both the rack and the planter. That right edge is my Hyacinth Bean plant.
My Hyacinth Bean Vine. Judy started this from seed for me. The pot is set in what was supposed to be a chair shaped table that I bought from a neighbor's yard sale for $3. Eventually I want to paint it with flat black spray paint so that it matches the other pieces better. Oh, and that's my Mother's Day present feeder :)
I picked up this baker's rack at a Dollar General store for $10. The original shelves were UGLY! Plus they were fiberboard covered with paper. After the first rain, they warped and peeled. So we got some plywood from Rick's parents and cut them to size. I painted them and gave them a coat of water sealer and now they look a zillion percent better. I'm not exactly happy with the paint job (light green sponged over black) but it's still better and I can always change it later. On the top shelf is my tarragon plant (that I grew from seed) and a daisy like flower that's white with a deep purple edging around the center, plus my froggies. Second shelf is a house plant that was only labled as a Rose Flower. It's got little red flowers on it. I'll have to take a close up picture of it to put up, I picked the ceramic bird house on clearnance at the same Dollar General store I got the rack from. On the bottom shelf is a Jade plant that Rick's Granny gave me and a resin ball thingy that the upstairs neighbors had and left behind. I've got a couple more of them I just have to locate so I can put them out here too.
On the left is my mixed lettuces. One of the plants is a curly endive, yesterday Rick calls me outside, points it out and says "I think something has been eating your lettuce" ... nope, it's supposed to look like that lol. In the center are my radishes (which are HOT!) and to the right is nastursiums. I thought I got the edible kind, but it turns out they aren't. But the hummingbirds and butterflies like them. Oh, and that little planter in front is my compost 'starter' I basically drop the dead-headed flowers and dried out leaves in it to let them dry up some before I dump them in my compost bucket.
Last stop, my Geraniums. The table came from Rick's uncle's house. I want to paint the table black to match the rest of the stuff too, but while the top does come off the legs, the glass doesn't come out, so I need to figure out the logistics of the paint job. The geraniums are planted in a child's sand bucket. I've got the shovels that go with the buckets (got them from Judy, she was going to put them in her next yard sale but I liberated them). The petunias in the second picture are also planted in a sand bucket. (The car isn't ours, I think the upstairs neighbor left it there)
Not on the deck, but technically in front of the deck. During the winter I hang my bird feeders from this hook. On the left is Black Eyed Susan vine that I started from seed. On the left is my Vinca, not sure if the leaves are yellow from over watering or under watering, but they're starting to green back up again.
Close-ups on the deck plants:
The geraniums
An early shot of the petunias ... the whole bucket is full of them now and you can't see the soil at all.
The Vinca
The daisies
One of the wild flowers
Hyacinth Bean buds
Hyacinth Bean flowers
This is one of the buds on that mystery plant.
My Pool Garden
I wanted to do veggies. I got some tomato seeds as part of this kids greenhouse offer on last year's sunflower seeds package. Well, this 'spectacular' greenhouse and free seeds were a package of container tomato plant seeds and a plastic bag greenhouse. My original plan was to just grow the tomatoes. Then I decided what's tomatoes without cucumbers, so I saved some seeds from one of the cucumbers Granny gave us last summer. Then I had to have the lettuce (I mean what's a salad without lettuce right?). When I was getting the lettuce seeds I saw the green bean seeds and decided to add that to my garden. Then I picked up some lemon cucumber seeds on clearance because they looked interesting. I had planted watermelon too, but with only one surviving plant I would have gotten flowers, but no melons so I pulled that out to make room for the extra cucumbers. Watering from the deck because I'm lazy, I'd often miss the buckets so I decided to buy a small plastic kid's wading pool to put the buckets in.
All 6 buckets. There are two buckets of cucumbers on the right, a bucket of greenbeans in the back center and the other three buckets are tomatoes. Now when I stand on the deck above and water, if I miss the bucket I'm not watering the grass and the plants will still be able to get the water from the bottom of the pool. And, if we go camping for the weekend I can fill the pool with water and not have to worry about the plants drying up and dying. I think I can also fit some of the smaller plants in there too so they can get the water from the pool.
The green bean blossoms :) I've now got at least a half dozen baby green beans, I didn't search really well so there may be more.
And tomato blossoms. Between the three plants I now have maybe a dozen and a half blossoms.
Yay ... a nice sized green bean, and a couple little ones.
Another good sized green bean. Unfortunately there are only two of the good sized ones, so they'll be pretty big when I finally pick it.
A baby tomato! There's another itty bitty one close to this one but the picture didn't come out very well. Rick and I counted at least 2 dozen blossoms besides the two baby tomatoes.
Rick and I are going to be rigging up an awning/canopy system to shade the pool garden to keep the tomatoes from getting sun blisters when Mother Nature turns up the heat next month.
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