Adventures in Container Gardening

Even though we don’t currently have furniture on our balcony, I wanted to freshen it up a bit with some color and life. Last summer we had an outdoor couch on our balcony, along with some planters with flowers and herbs. Even though we’ve moved the couch to the backyard and don’t currently have any furniture out there now, I wanted to make the balcony feel a little less like a wasteland with some new flowers.

When I was growing up, my mom and I used to plant new annuals in our patio garden every year. I remember her always checking the labels on the plants at the garden center to see how much sun they needed, etc. Given that we live in L.A. and in the middle of a multi-year drought, I usually do some research on which plants to buy that won’t need too much water and that will be able to thrive with the sun of wherever we’re living before I go to the store (also because I get decision paralysis in the garden center).

This year though, I decided to loosen up and make my decisions on the spot. I took Benji to a local garden center and started hunting for some of the names I remembered from previous years’ research, like Kangaroo Paw or Salvia flowers. Benji, however, did not approve of non-functional flowers. When I asked if he liked the flowers and if we should get them, I got a solid no. Since I wanted this to be fun for both of us, we moved on, figuring we could find something he’d like.

So what did Benji approve of? Blueberries.

We brought home two blueberry plants (so they could cross-pollinate), one mint plant (for drinks), one basil plant (for cooking), and one chives plant (also for cooking, but mostly because I forgot that green onions and chives aren’t the same thing).

Before we could plant anything though, I needed to clean out our containers. Last year our plants got root rot and/or stem rot, which it turns out contaminates the container. How do you know if you have root rot/stem rot? I usually notice it when black creeps up the stems and overtakes the green or the leaves turn yellow and wilty and the stems get mushy. You can also tell by the roots, though, which are brown and soft instead of white and firm.

You can see my rough starting point above.

Turns out my mom’s work study job in college was scrubbing gardening containers that had been contaminated with root rot (she was a botany major), and she told me to grab some bleach and water, a bucket, and a nylon brush. Rather than rely on her memory of the proper bleach to water ratio, I looked it up and learned that letting 9 parts water to 1 part bleach soak in the container for a few hours would take care of the root rot. I was all prepared to do this until the hole at the bottom of the planters reminded me that any liquid I poured in would immediately leave the containers.

At this point, I gave up on proper ratios and exact measurements. I poured some water in a bucket (always do water before bleach, otherwise, in my experience, you risk creating a noxious gas) and then put in about 2-3 glugs of bleach. I don’t know that the bleach actually made a glug sound coming out of the container, but I think the amount I put in would have been equal to 2-3 glugs of wine.

Then I grabbed the scrub brush, dipped it in the bleach/water solution (a little chem class vocab for you there), and started scrubbing the first container (I had already emptied all of the old dirt out). This was the point I realized that it would have been better to hose all the containers down first since I was now scrubbing mud.

I gave all the containers a good hosing, scrubbed their insides, making sure there were no more pieces of rotted roots left in there and that any root rot contamination I couldn’t see would be gone, then hosed them down one more time because I figured the plants wouldn’t appreciate bleach in their soil. Next, I left the containers out in the sun to dry and get a little sun bleaching for any lingering bacteria.

After a few hours, I brought the planters back to the balcony and got ready to plant. At the gardening center they told me that blueberries need acidity in the soil, so they sold me a bag of fertilizer. Now there is a proper way to measure and mix the amount of fertilizer you need for the amount of soil you’re using, but my mind went utterly blank as I read what I perceived to be a math problem on the back of the fertilizer bag.

Since time was running out before I had to go pick up Benji from school, I threw caution to the wind and guestimated how much fertilizer I would need, then mixed that with the soil I had poured into the container. Part of the reason I was okay doing this was because I plan to buy a soil meter. I’ve used one before to help me avoid overwatering the plants, so I know they usually come with a pH meter, too. My previous soil meter died, possibly because I left it outside all year, but who can say?

At the nursery, the lovely woman working in the herb section told us that mint is a bad neighbor, so I made sure to plant it in it’s own container. However, after a little research this morning, I’ve learned that it should be planted in a container at least 12 inches deep, so I may switch it with the basil, which only lasts a couple of months anyways.

In previous years, I’ve tried to combine plants together in planters, but I’m hoping that by keeping them all separate, they’ll be more likely to thrive.

In that spirit, I may go back and add a little fertilizer to the other containers as well, once I get my soil meter.