Frogsong Studio Blog

Okay, I’ve told you all about my Lasagna gardens which are doing well by the way. Now let me tell you about my upside down garden.

You’ve probably all heard about the “Topsy Turvy”. That over-priced little thing that you grow a tomato plant in upside down? Well, I did some googling and found that people are growing a variety of vegetables upside down in 5 gallon buckets.

So, not only do I happen to have some 5 gallon buckets, I also had some buckets that cat litter comes in. So I thought, why not recycle and create a hanging garden at the same time? Now, I can get away with this because I live in the foothills and my neighbors don’t have to look at it.

Because we have so many gophers, moles, deer, wild pigs and other critters that wreak havoc on in ground vegetable gardens, I was desparate to protect my garden this year. So we took 4 panels from our corral and made a little upside down garden corral.

This is what it looked like when we completed it.

Upside Down Garden

 It’s been about 2 1/2 weeks since we planted it and I’m happy to say that they are all growing great. We are even starting to see our first little summer squash.

 I would encourage anyone who would love to grow their own food but  doesn’t have the room for an in-ground garden to give this a try.

I also made good use of the tops of the buckets by planting herbs and other things.

 
Here is a list of what I planted upside down. 

Cucumbers
Squash
Tomatoes
Peppers
Green Beans
Egg Plant
Canteloupe
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In the tops of the buckets I planted:

Basil
Cilantro
Oregano
Green onions
Chives
Arugula
Pickling cucumbers
English Salad Cucumbers
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Everything is growing extremely well so far and I’m excited about that. I even bought a canner, so I’m ready to preserve all the goodies we get.

No, I’m not growing Lasagna…haha!

Lasagna gardening is a way of gardening using, well, trash, among other things. Here’s what we did.

First we laid out some old railroad ties in a square. Then we started filling it up with all our compostible trash. Paper, cardboard, and whatever else we had that could go into the compost pile. Over that we threw horse poop, goat poop, chicken poop, old straw, wood shaving, and dirt. Then we started all over again and layered everything just like you would if you were making lasagna. Hence, the name Lasagna Gardening.

So, in our first one we planted two varieties of radishes, mustard greens, and lettuce. Today, I picked 2 bags full of mustard greens which I will have to blanch and freeze. And I picked three bags full of radishes which I plan to make into radish relish and preserve.

We also planted some new things today. We planted two varieties of Okra, some red onion, some red potatoes and some sugar snaps peas. Yum! Needless to say. I’m plum beat.

Tomorrow I will try to get some pictures of the harvest. I’m soooooo glad we are finally starting to warm up a bit.