How to grow Vegetables in Containers:

Vegetables fresh from our containers
Photo by Biswarup Ganguly

Growing vegetables in containers has been practiced for years, but if you are a first time gardener this might be for you.  Container gardening is especially useful if you are an apartment dweller because it doesn’t take up much space, and you’d be surprised how much you can grow with this technique.

The best containers for this are wooden tubs or large terra-cotta pots.  You can buy either of these at a garden center, or even your local supermarket in the spring of the year.  Some of these stores even have used whiskey barrels that have been sawed in half.  These make excellent containers for raising vegetables.

You can grow just about any type of vegetable in a container, but you should pick those that are capable of producing the highest yield in the least space.  One of these is tomatoes.  In a large wooden tub you should be able to plant four tomato plants.  If they are supported on tomato stakes, a wooden stake about four feet tall they will produce several bushels of ripe tomatoes.  If you want you can vary the types of tomatoes you grow, but use separate containers for each breed.

The first thing you have to do is prepare your containers for planting.  Be sure they have a drain hole in the bottom, this is important so the plant doesn’t become waterlogged.  Cover the drain hole with something slightly curved like a piece of a broken terra-cotta pot.  Then put about two to three inches of processed gravel, this is a mixture of sand and gravel, into the bottom of the pot.  Place on top of this several inches or sub-soil, this is what lies beneath the topsoil in the ground.  Leave enough room for from four to six inches of potting soil that can be bought at a garden supply shop.  Now your pot is ready to be planted.

You are ready to plant your vegetables that can be either seeds or plants that are already started.  Seeds and plants are readily available from garden supply shops.  You can start some plants yourself by planting them in flats you keep indoors until the weather warms up enough to replant them outdoors in your containers.

When you first start planting add some fertilizer beneath the seeds or plants and cover it first with a small amount of soil so your plants do not come in direct contact with the fertilizer.

During the growing season you will probably have to fertilize the plants during the end of June, and again during mid-August.  It is best to dissolve the fertilizer in some water before applying.  Just apply the fertilizer with regular watering.  The plants will need regular watering throughout the season. 

Raising Lunker Trout at Home:

This is going to require that you build a pond if you don’t already have one on your property.  The best kind of pond that you can have is one that is naturally spring fed that is at least ten feet deep or more.  You should build your pond somewhere in the shade unless you want to raise catfish.  The other thing you have to consider in building a pond is how large should it be?

The reason why the pond should be sited so it is at least shaded is because the heat from the sun’s rays will raise the temperature of the water to a point that trout can’t survive.  Trout are a cold water fish.

A good trout pond is at least 2,000 square feet, and the bigger it is the better for your trout.  This allows your fish room to grow and breed.  There should be some sort of food fish introduced to the pond before you put any trout in the pond.  This should be done a year prior to the introduction of the trout.

Most ponds that are dug in this manner have a strong tendency to heal their own bottoms with a thin layer of clay except where the water comes into the pond or exits the pond,  This is actually a geological principle that affects all bodies of water.

After you have dug your pond, and it has filled with ground water before any other life is introduced inoculate it with a couple of buckets of water that has been collected from an existing pond.  This can be done just by pouring the water from the buckets into your pond.

This will provide a source of small aquatic life for your food fish to thrive on.  It will also help your pond to have a good environment for future stockings of fish.

In the beginning your pond will be extremely muddy this is natural.  The small particles of clay are answering to a physical law called Brownian movement where the jostling molecules of the water tend to keep these tiny particles suspended in the water.  You can solve this problem with a few teaspoons full of aluminum sulfate that is available from a swimming supply store.

You are also going to have to provide an aereator to the pond to be sure your fish receive enough oxygen to survive.  There are suppliers of these aerators on the Internet just Google pond aerators.

Even though the pond has some type of food fish along with the trout they all will need to be fed additional fish food.  This is available at your local feed dealer, or can be ordered on the Internet, Google fish food.

This raising of fish is considered aquaculture that is another thing you should Google on the Internet. This is how you get to raise Lunker Trout in your backyard.

References:

Global Aquatics, http://www.growfish.com/

Klamath Hatchery,