Container Garden

This year I'm going to grow more vegetables in containers. I've got 4 large pots with potatoes, 3 with a lettuce mix, and a couple others I haven't yet decided upon. This first picture shows what I've got going as of this morning. We had a rain shower so everything is green and wet.
The next picture shows a mesclun mix. I probably planted a little too much here. I sprinkled the seeds along the top and set the pot out. It's a 12 inch self watering pot and I think it's working fine. The self watering part is a mesh piece that runs along the bottom of the pot. There is a large water reservoir built into the pot that the mesh runs into. The water reservoir holds at least a gallon and probably more. The mesh makes the water available to the pot without having it sit in water. As the water in the pot is used by the plants or evaporates, it is pulled through the mesh into the soil mixture. I noticed that the self watering pots had seedling up and growing well before the standard pot. In the picture above the standard pot is the square one. It was planted the same date as the two self watering pots just to the right of it.

Below are two of the four pots with potatoes. They were planted in late March and left outdoors. I've only watered once or twice as we have had a lot of rain this spring. The variety is La Ratte, an heirloom fingerling variety from Seed Savers Exchange. I'm also planting some in the garden just to compare