Up-cycle gardening - 1 month update

It's been one month since we planted out tomatoes, bell peppers, and jalapenos in our up cycle garden. For a reminder of how we created this part of our up-cycle garden (we are hoping to add more as the weather permits), click here.

Just a reminder of what we did, (everything was planted from seed) we took four 2-liter bottles and planted three variety of tomatoes in hopes to get three plants per 2-liter. One month after planting we have:

• Roma's - 5 plants (sadly, one didn't sprout!)
• Sweet 100 - 3 plants
• Cherry - 4 plants (surprise on the 4th - and hope it survives, it's the runt of the pot)

I have to say I am loving this way of planting. Overall I have only added water once to the 'pots', at that time it wasn't really needed, however, we had made boiled eggs and I wanted to add some of the nutrients in the water to the plants. Depending on what site  you view, some say water from the  top while others recommend lifting the top portion and adding your water to the bottom section, I prefer to water from the top, if the plant/ soil doesn't need it, it will drain into the bottom section just fine. I also prefer misting versus pouring, especially while the plants are still fragile (no need killing them all because of water).

Also one month ago, we planted 12 bell peppers and 12 jalapenos, 1 seed per toilet paper roll (or so I thought). It is a little hard to see in this picture, but 3 'rolls' of bell peppers didn't sprout and 1 jalapeno 'roll' didn't sprout. However we have:

• Bell Peppers - 13 plants
• Jalapenos - 14 plants

I have to admit, I am not sure I will go this route again. We had several episodes of what appeared to be mold (although it remained white) on several rolls and because my container is so much taller than my rolls, I have to remember to alter, rotate, and adjust my container every so often to allow all the plants to get adequate sun. For watering, the only way to go is misting The benefits of this way of planting, you can see if any of your 'rolls' need water just by looking at the outer side of the roll.

 

We can't wait for another month to see how much bigger our plants have gotten, and we will begin transitioning all of these plants to outdoors.