There are a lot of new things we want to plant this year and were concerned with having enough room to do what we wanted. We needed to go vertical! I saw "tipsy pots" online or on TV last year and forgot about it until Jeff brought it up this year. I found this tutorial online to build them. Basically, you stack clay pots along a piece of re-bar. We couldn't figure out how to cut re-bar without some major tools, so we used metal conduit that was easily cut with a hacksaw (I'm guessing it was easy... Jeff took care of that!). The base pot is 12" and the top four are 10". We planted one variety of strawberries in two towers and another variety on the ground in front.
We got extra pots to make a smaller tower for my herbs!
Finally, Jeff set up his aquaponics again. According to Wikipedia (because we know they are the ultimate authority in everything), aquaponics is "a sustainable food production system that combines a traditional aquaculture (raising aquatic animals such as fish, crayfish or prawns in tanks) with hydroponics (cultivating plants in water) in a symbiotic environment." As far as I know, he's not put any fish or anything in that container, so maybe it's still just hydroponics. He's growing Chinese lettuce in it.Lot's happening in the backyard! I'm going to try and add a page to the blog with an ongoing list of what we've planted, when we planted it and how much was produced. It's supposed to get near freezing tonight, but hopefully everything will be okay. We may have to throw sheets over some things.
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ReplyDeleteI REALLY want to try strawberries in our garden too...and I LOVE the idea of tipsy pots, but I ahve a question...when you plant them in tipsy pots, will you treat them as annuals as if you had planted them in the ground or will you replant them each year in the tipsy pots? also, do ya'll subscribe to the idea of picking off all the flowers the first year after planting the strawberries, or do you let them go to fruit even the first year?
Melanie
We'll leave them in the pots and bring them into the garage or something over the winter. This is definitely an experiment. These are supposedly "ever-bearing" so they should keep coming back. "June-bearing" plants need to have their flowers plucked off the first year (which I think is cruel). We did it with the ones we planted two years ago. It's supposed to help the roots get stronger. The second year we had tons of strawberries.
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