by Dave Toellner

I have tried several types of gardening ranging from tilling up a section of the back yard, raised bed and now container gardening.

Each attempt has brought its own frustrations and victories. In tilling, a section of the back yard was tilled, tomatoes, corn and beans planted. The actual tilling brought a nice turned area which presented itself with good looking rows to plant. The first issue was getting water to the area from the back of the house by hose and then putting in a watering system so “Mr. Lazy” would not have to go out and water every day. The watering system was with sprinklers overhead, so water was put onto the leaves. I could have sworn I heard singing come from the leaves … but maybe not.

Then when the tomatoes began showing and ripening, they suddenly seemed to disappear. It was sort of like someone put out a newspaper inviting every bird, insect, and squirrel for a free lunch.

The corn was next except this time I knew exactly what was happening – my Golden Retriever was having himself a real good time knocking down the plants and eating the corn.

Time to move on to something else. This time we tried to do the raised bed and liked the way we could get to the plants without walking through the planted area and tried a soaker watering rather than the spray.

Problem there was still had the birds, insects, squirrels and of course man’s best friend to deal with.

Considering all these issues we have made the change to CONTAIRERS, in my case Earth Boxes. Currently, I have five of the large and three juniors. The key to Earth Boxes is to get a good quality growing media for the plants, follow the instructions to mound the soil and place the required band of fertilizer as shown. After that, it is just plant, cover the soil with the included mulch cover, water and enjoy.

Let’s look at some of the positive features of say growing Tomatoes.

First you can put them near the house by placing the containers on the porch, on a table or on a low brick fence. As the plants are closer to the house, you can quickly see about growth and insect issues.

Supporting the plants can be done in the container or side of the container, table or fence with stakes, cages, and any other innovative ideas. If there are issues with sunlight, move the container. Watering is through a water fill tube; you never have water on the leaves or cause diseases to be splashed onto the leaves. In watering you cannot over fill the container because there is a drain hole that will let you know you have enough water for the container. It won’t take long to know how often you will have to water or if you want to invest in an automatic watering system which is also available. With the mulch cover you are also protecting against diseases during the time of rainfall.

You can protect the plants from birds, squirrels, and other critters by simply putting a screen mesh around the supporting table, etc.

Pruning is easy as the plants can be at eye level, and you can quickly just put the sucker in place in the same container.

Picking and enjoying your harvest is the reward of some easy work.

Try it and do some experimenting in the number of plants to each container, adding additional low growing flowers or vegetables. Add another container and have that salad ready for the picking.

Dave Toellner, an intern in the 2014 Master Gardener Class, lives in Montgomery. For more information on becoming a Master Gardener, visit www.capcitymga.org or email capcitymga@gmail.com.