Salad Ball

1st I must give some credit to Organic Gardening for giving me this idea, though I put mine together a little bit differently. I haven't filled it out completely, but you get the idea.One problem with planters that have things coming out of the sides is that watering can be very tricky. It tends to seep inside and not get evenly distributed. I can't remember where I saw an idea similar to mine, but mine is unique.What you see here are 2 toilet paper rolls and a small piece of landscaping cloth. I use the rolls to make a temporary brace for this tube.
The tube is stood up in the center of the planter. I guess the ideal length is to a little bit past the center, though mine is a bit longer.

I put the top basket up there to make sure it's not too short or too long. Notice I have it a little short of the top. as I filled this in I moved it up a little.Once it is in place you need to fill it up. I used hydroton, I think pebble would be fine. The idea it to use some inorganic stuff that will let water flow through easily.
Then you plant the stuff in. It's easiest to plant it up, layering dirt on top. The coco liner I used for the bottom is aquasav which made this harder than plain coco, which you can just push stuff through, this required me to CUT into it, though in theory this will need less watering.

Topics I want to cover

As promised, I am posting a pretty picture. Here's my 7 bowl paperwhite narcissus, before bloom. My sister gave me this lovely thing last summer and I initially did not know what to do with it.

I ended up placing basil flower buds in it which took root. I ended up with dozens of extra basil plants which I planted out wherever I could. I never did have any one basil plant that was huge, but I had lots of little ones everywhere.

When it started getting colder, the basils stopped readily rooting. I tend to be in denial about the change of weather so I tried for a while but now I've let most of my basils flower. I think that this week my garden will mostly die. But that's another story.

So, in giving up on rooting basil, and also rosemary and whatever other little sprig of whatever, I washed this lovely thing. Come September I was at Home Depot and they had all their bulbs out and believe it or not, I am a sucker for flowers.

The paperwhites came in bags of 10 for 11 or 12 bucks, which is a deal. I got some others which given this long cold season, I will talk about more. Anyway, below, you see my lovely thing with 7 bulbs in it.

The terracotta 'pebbles' you see are actually hydroton, which is something I experimented with for making self-watering pots which had limited success. This could e a reflection of my own limitations, but they have worked well for this purpose.

I did not plant the bulbs all at once. I planted them at 5 day intervals, which is why the plants are different sized.
So here it is a month or so later, showing one set of blooms. lovely isn't it? I sorta wish I had started it later. I mean, it isn't even Halloween and I have these Xmas flowers!

Anyway, I hope you enjoy this eyecandy.

I actually started this blog with what I posted below. I want to be focused. I want people to look at this and get inspired, but I also want to do some specific things here.

• how did I get into this?
• what kinds of people did I work for?
• what kind of people do I want to work for now?
  
• what did I do before this?
• where do I like to get my supplies?
• what books do I enjoy?
• what plants do I enjoy?
• how do you make your garden grow?

These are just a few off the top of my head.