Gardening with a Twist – 3/18/2013

So, most gardeners are familiar with raised beds and trellises.  This year, I’m is working on a couple of…unusual…gardening methods.  The first is a special trellis.  For the past few years, I’ve had a teepee trellis made out of the old ‘bamboo’ stalks.  This year, I have a new trellis – the metal frame from one of the cherry blossom trees at the Chinese Lantern Festival last year at the Missouri Botanical Garden.  Here is what they looked like in the summer of 2012.

And in the summer of 2013, here is what mine looks like after being rescued from the jaws of the scrap-metal-crushing equipment at the Garden.  It has been painted black and scraps of lantern festival silks have been tied to it.  I also tried a couple of methods to put a planter in the middle of it so that the plants don’t all have to start at the bottom.  After being blown over a couple of times by wind, it is now solidly anchored in the ground with a slightly different potted planter set-up than the one pictured here.

The other new addition to the garden is a tube garden.  These PVC tubes have been growing onions and spinach since last year, but only this spring did I get them stacked and placed in a location to get the right sun (morning sun) and plenty of water (right by a rain barrel).  The black tubing is supposed to be a drip irrigation system that hooks into the rain barrel, but I still haven’t gotten that part to work how I’d like.

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