Sapient Conglomeration: My Little Bucket Garden

Bucket gardening seems to be more of a craze than I realized until I started researching the subject, quite a few years ago. I found photos of large groups of buckets scattered in a yard. I found pics of these beautiful porch pots full of veggies. I tried to grow tomatoes on my porch in a great big pot but had no luck. Either the soil was too dry or not draining well enough or the bugs started eating the leaves. After two years and about 10 plants, I gave up.

Last year I saw the garden that my brother was growing. It is definitely bucket gardening but done in a different way than I had tried. His buckets were sunk into the ground with the bottoms cut out for drainage. I asked just what the purpose was and he told me that it was easier to maintain the weeds and grass that would grow around it. And it also supplied more of a directional watering system. WOW – makes a lot of sense. His garden was beautiful.

This year it is my turn. The water in my area is very expensive. Has something to do with the number of pumping stations that it has to go through just to get to this rural area. (one of these days I will be checking into that one) I figured where the best sunlight and shade would be and got started digging holes. I had no idea how easy it would be to do this, by digging a little and filling the hole with water and then digging a little more, and repeating the water thing. It wasn’t difficult, but it took a long time for me, especially since I am so darn out of shape. Thanks to this garden idea, I realize that more now than before.

After a week of digging and clearing I went to Home Depot to pick up a dozen 5 gallon buckets, 3 bags of potting soil, a small bag of organic plant food, 6 ten foot pieces of PVC pipe (you’ll understand later) and a few plants. By purchasing a few plants I kept myself motivated to move forward on the project. And I did just that.

This could turn into a post way too long for now so I am going to work on it in segments. Getting the holds dug and the buckets into the ground is a huge first step so we can start there. Here are the steps that I sort of started with.

First - found the area that I knew would get adequate sunshine for my plants. Tomatoes need to get about 6 hours of sunshine each day. In this hot desert, like where I live, you have to make they get that but also realize that they are going to need sunshade for the middle of the day when the sun is beating down. I live in the high desert so our planting season doesn’t really start until about the first of May, when the ground starts warming up. The first week I was concerned that the garage that I was using for wind block on the south side ( that is the direction that we get our heavy and damaging winds during monsoon ) of the garden was shading the plants too much. Within two weeks things were just fine.

Second – I started digging the holes, allowing enough space for the plants to get sunshine to the bottom of the plant without being drown out by too much foliage. I measured the height of the buckets and dug the holes just deep enough to leave 2 inches of bucket above the ground, and just a little bigger around.

Third – it’s bucket cutting time. I had watched my brother do this and thought that it wouldn’t be too difficult. The first one was a real pain in my butt. Using a hack saw, I attempted to cut just above the bottom edge. I gotta tell you that I just am not all that talented with the hack saw. And my brother made it look real simple. I the next couple got a bit easier but I was still not happy with the time it was taking. So – I decided to put on my thinking cap and find an easier way. After all, I still have 9 of these buckets to go. The rest got easier as I changed things up a bit. I did start the cut with the hack saw but then switched to the gig saw. Did my cuts look as neat as my brothers? Not even. But it all works and the imperfections will be buried in the ground. Please don’t ever tell my bro.

Forth – in a 5 gallon container I mixed potting soil and ground dirt, about half and half. I may have made a mistake at this time. I may have been better to add a little steer manure to the mix and I didn’t. We’ll see how it goes. Save out the plant food for now.

Fifth - put the buckets in the ground and begin to fill with your soil mixture. Now, there is one thing that I do at this point that I will tell you about in the next post. So please read that first if you are considering following my example; which I highly recommend if you wish to conserve water. The amount of soil you use depends on the size of pot that your plant is in. Guess that goes without saying. I had 4 inch pots and also 3 gallon pots. You will be about to judge this as you go. An important thing to remember here is that you will want to add your plant food to the top 4 inches of soil. Avoid having it too close the base of the plant where it could possibly burn the foliage. Fill the pot to about 2 inches from the top; this allows for a small well for water to gather in without overflowing. Pack the soil firm but not overly packed. The soil will settle and you may have to add a little later.

Sixth – fill in, with ground dirt, the area around the bucket. You may have to do this a little bit at a time as you are filling the inside, to keep the bucket from shifting too much. Leave a little trench around the outer edge of the bucket. There are a couple of reasons for this. First, if you overflow your bucket with water, you will keep it close and the plant may still get some benefit. Second, you may want to plant some marigolds close to your vegetable plants. They have many benefits, which will be in a later post. This small trench is a perfect place for this planting. Once they are established a bit, the little bit of splashing that will happen from the watering will be plenty to maintain them. Again, we don’t want to waste water in our garden.

Now you have plants in the ground. In future post I will tell you about some of the ways that I keep the water bill down, how I fenced off my garden, how to easily shade your plants and what little flowers will benefit you and your garden the most.