We’ve been gardening like crazy, people. I still can’t believe how many warm, sunny days we’ve been having out here along Ocean Beach. Taking advantage of it, we cleared out a ton of junky plants, divided up the cool ones and planted a bunch of new stuff, including more veggies. Just in time before the rain moves in this weekend. We love it when it rains. Since we irrigate some of our plants, it’s a nice break to have Mother Nature be our irrigation system.

This past summer we got to test drive a self-watering planter. The first thing we planted in it was a bunch of tomatoes and snow peas. By the way, almost all tomatoes don’t grow well out here in our hood. If you do have to plant some, I highly recommend sticking to cold-climate cherry tomato ’cause most tomatoes needs more heat than the OB can give on a regular basis.
Well, all of our summer vegetables are pretty much over with, so it was time to prep and grow some new veggies in the planter.

Quick note on this self-watering planter. Basically, it’s a plastic container with wheels on the bottom so you can push it around. There’s a 4-gallon water reservoir in the bottom and a tray that keeps soil from getting into the water. Water is drawn up to the soil using wicks. And voila, your soil stays consistently moist without having to get out there with the watering can every day. We figure that we needed to fill up the reservoir about once a week.

OK, we pulled out all the dead plants and then added some more soil and compost.

So what’s good to plant this time of year? We decided on some broccoli starters and sowed some snow-pea seeds. Some other veggies that you can plant now are lettuce, cabbage, leeks and spinach. Feeling motivated and wanna build your own self-watering planter? Check out Fresh Dirt’s sweet DYI Planter. Okay there, time to rethink our water catcher. See ya in two weeks. Megan and Matti ~ Far Out Flora