Saturday Gardening: A Topsy Turvy experience.

I have decided to blog about my new gardening adventure. The goal is to update with new pictures every Saturday so that you can see my success or probable failure at simple gardening.

Now ... let me begin this post by explain that I have never gardened in my whole life. We never grew anything other than dandelions in the front yard when I was growing up. I wouldn't say I have a black thumb... I mean... my ivy hasn't died yet... but I wouldn't call it green either. Maybe its... Mustard yellow?

Since our backyard is far from being done, I've decided to start with the simple late night TV phenomenon Topsy Turvy gardening. I went to my local Home Depot and bought both the tomato Topsy Turvy and the pepper Topsy Turvy. They also had a strawberry one, but I did not buy it. Why you ask? Strawberries are so good!? Well... I'll tell you why. Home Depot, as wonderful as it is, does not sell strawberry plants. They sell awesome upside down strawberry planters, but no strawberries to plant inside your strawberry planter. What's up with that Home Depot?

So lets take a look at my back yard.

There is no landscaping. And the lawn is uneven. There is a good reason for this. It's not done! Go figure. So the Topsy Turvy garden seemed a good start for me not only because I have absolutely no idea what I'm doing, but also because if I plant anything actually in the ground... I will only be forced to pull it out in preparation for finishing out the lawn. BUT! We do have a covered patio that I could suspend hanging plants from!

Hey you see that little dark round thing in the bottom of the shot? That's Owly. He's a solar powered owl.

And I love him.

But moving on...

I bought this lovely organic soil to use. And it smelled so good. I didn't think I would think the dirt smelled good but oh wow it really was quite lovely.

Here are the Topsy Turvy's. They just come in a box. Nothing exciting. But what I didn't know til I actually did the research is...

...you have to buy the plant to put in it. I thought you would just pull this magical planter out of the box, hang it up, give it a little love and water, and POOF you would have wonderful tomato's and pepper's. But no. Apparently you have to actually buy the plants. The obviously increased my gardening budget by quite a bit.

I did have lots of fun picking out the different types of plants though...

The tomato's were pretty simple. I just went with the most normal looking tomato. You can only plant one type of tomato at a time. No mixing and matching in the pot. But the peppers! Up to 7 types! Oh boy!

Just look at all those lovely peppers... but none of those are my favorite.

This one is. Mucho Nacho. MUCHO NACHO?! Did you even know there is a pepper called Mucho Nacho? I sure didn't. How could I resist? I have to buy Mucho Nacho.

Mucho Nacho.

Mucho Nacho.

Mucho Nacho.

Its even fun to say.

Mucho Nacho.

Ok... I'm done...

...

MUCHO NACHO!

Ok. Sorry.

First I got the pepper container ready to load up with peppers and soil.

I filled it with enough of my organic soil mixture to bring it up to the first level of plant ports. That way the little baby pepper plants of somewhere to rest.

Then I carefully took the first four flavors out of their little peat pots and stuck them through the plant ports. I know they could have grown right out of their little biodegradable pots, but the pots were simply too big to fit through the plant ports. Believe me. I tried. The less dirt under my nails the better. And another thing... those little plant ports? They don't open up for plant insertion very easily. I was having to shove those delicate little plants in there! I was for sure damaging the roots which worries me. I would hate to think I've ruined some perfectly good pepper plants.

I then put more dirt inside helping to secure the newly transplanted peppers and also making a bed for the second level of peppers to rest on. It got a little easier as I went along. Not necessarily on the plants and their roots but on me. I guess I got into the rhythm of planting.

After you get all the plants on your supposed to fill it to within two inches of the top of the planter. However, I found that after the dirt settles later, your two inches turns into four and you have to add more soil. As my husband so kindly pointed out to me by saying "This is NOT two inches." Thanks Baby. So I've since added even more dirt to both planters.

As I planted I made sure to put the little plant type markers in the plant ports so that I would know what type of peppers I was harvesting. I wouldn't want to confuse a ordinary but delicious with my precious MUCHO NACHO.

I then put the plastic planter lid on the top and set the planter to the side while I moved on to the tomato planter. Which was way harder.

Also... you may have noticed the plant seems to be hanging on something. Well. It is. On my door knob. The tomato version is much larger than the pepper version. You know what I discovered? Dirt is heavy! Oh man!! I could not hold that thing up at an angle were I could fill the dirt and not risk smashing the tomato plant on the ground. I had to hang it.

After filling it all the way up with dirt using the only garden shovel I had... which was not a garden shovel at all but a coffee cup, I left it hanging on the door while I tried to attach the hooks to porch cover so I could hang my new garden planters.

I discovered something... there was no way on earth that my skinny little bird arms had enough might to force that screw hook into the wood while balancing on the top of a ladder. I had no others choice...

I hung them in the garage using some storage hooks that were already up and waited for my husband to get home. What could be better for your new plants than open air access to fluffy pink insulation? Yup. My plants are going to live forever and taste GREAT. ...

Me woman. Me strong. Me not strong enough to put in hooks. Me fail.

Thankfully my amazing husband got home and saved the day! And my plants! I was able to save them from their dark stale and short lived life in the garage and bring them out to rest right in front of the water meter. I bet they'll be good friends.

breathe in. breathe out. breathe in. breathe out.
Ah.... I feel better. I've accomplished something! I HAVE PLANTED MY FIRST ATTEMPT AT A GARDEN!

But then I realized...

I had made a mess. And I needed to clean it up.

I think this is why I've never gardened.

It's messy.

And I don't really like to clean dirt.

Call me weird.

...MUCHO NACHO!