Porch planning
Mar. 21st, 2005 12:17 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
magidI've overwintered a couple of plants: rosemary and two kinds of lavender, all of which are headed towards shrubness. I need to transplant at least one of the lavenders, and perhaps the rosemary, too.
I've ordered chives and some sungold tomatoes from Revision House Urban Farm (Hrm. I thought I'd ordered basil, too, but my list doesn't seem to include that. Hopefully they'll have extra basil I can get when I pick up the rest). Despite the allure of their listings, I resisted getting more vegetables I won't have room for. I think I also resisted getting more herbs, for some reason I can't now fathom, other than it wasn't yet spring. So. I use chives and basil a lot, but it would also be nice to have some nasturtiums around, and possibly some oregano. (If only I had room for more vegetables... heirloom tomatoes, hot peppers, eggplants, chard, mesclun...)
I'm thinking about starting composting on the porch with worms, since it's faster and doesn't smell. There are lots of options for bins (building my own is a nice idea, but I know I'd never get around to it). Ideally, I'd get something fairly small, that I could put other plants on top of, so it wouldn't just take space away from plants, chairs, and such. However, worms don't like extreme temperatures, and I'm not sure that the intense sunlight I get wouldn't be too hot for them, even if they've got plants around them soaking up sunshine. The other option, I suppose, is putting it in the back stairway, which has the advantage of being easily accessible year-round, though it, too, gets very hot in the summer, since there's little air flow. Has anyone done worm composting? Any suggestions or ideas?
Another thing I'm considering this year is growing the tomatoes upside down (thanks to Hrafn for telling me about this). I wouldn't have to stake them, and I could even grow basil on top. However, a five-gallon bucket is pretty heavy when full; I'm fairly sure that the hooks I currently have on the porch (left from the previous owners) wouldn't be sturdy enough. Presumably Home Depot would have something heavy duty enough to replace them with. It would leave me a lot more room for herbs, though where the hooks are could mean they'd take up more people space. Perhaps put two plants right side up, and one by the edge of the porch upside down, and compare? (OK, and visually, this could be very cool).
And then there's leaving room for people. I didn't use the porch as much as I might've last year, and I'd like to do things differently this year. I need to work on the layout, and find appropriate planters. Pursuant to that, I need to get over my irrational idea that planters hanging off the railing are going to fall and kill someone. They're solid enough for that not to happen, and if I line lots of the railing with places for herbs and (edible) flowers, there will be more room on the 'floor' for the bigger stuff. I would also like to find some kind of piece that would let me put lots of plants along the wall of the house (up and down, so some kind of framework that would hold plants, possibly shelves, possibly not). OK, ideally, I'd have tons of money to throw at this, and I'd refinish the porch, add a pergola (given condo association approval, but that's likely), and have a landscape designer (or someone with a better eye than mine, at least) work with me to have a beautiful layout of plants that leaves room for people.
I've ordered chives and some sungold tomatoes from Revision House Urban Farm (Hrm. I thought I'd ordered basil, too, but my list doesn't seem to include that. Hopefully they'll have extra basil I can get when I pick up the rest). Despite the allure of their listings, I resisted getting more vegetables I won't have room for. I think I also resisted getting more herbs, for some reason I can't now fathom, other than it wasn't yet spring. So. I use chives and basil a lot, but it would also be nice to have some nasturtiums around, and possibly some oregano. (If only I had room for more vegetables... heirloom tomatoes, hot peppers, eggplants, chard, mesclun...)
I'm thinking about starting composting on the porch with worms, since it's faster and doesn't smell. There are lots of options for bins (building my own is a nice idea, but I know I'd never get around to it). Ideally, I'd get something fairly small, that I could put other plants on top of, so it wouldn't just take space away from plants, chairs, and such. However, worms don't like extreme temperatures, and I'm not sure that the intense sunlight I get wouldn't be too hot for them, even if they've got plants around them soaking up sunshine. The other option, I suppose, is putting it in the back stairway, which has the advantage of being easily accessible year-round, though it, too, gets very hot in the summer, since there's little air flow. Has anyone done worm composting? Any suggestions or ideas?
Another thing I'm considering this year is growing the tomatoes upside down (thanks to Hrafn for telling me about this). I wouldn't have to stake them, and I could even grow basil on top. However, a five-gallon bucket is pretty heavy when full; I'm fairly sure that the hooks I currently have on the porch (left from the previous owners) wouldn't be sturdy enough. Presumably Home Depot would have something heavy duty enough to replace them with. It would leave me a lot more room for herbs, though where the hooks are could mean they'd take up more people space. Perhaps put two plants right side up, and one by the edge of the porch upside down, and compare? (OK, and visually, this could be very cool).
And then there's leaving room for people. I didn't use the porch as much as I might've last year, and I'd like to do things differently this year. I need to work on the layout, and find appropriate planters. Pursuant to that, I need to get over my irrational idea that planters hanging off the railing are going to fall and kill someone. They're solid enough for that not to happen, and if I line lots of the railing with places for herbs and (edible) flowers, there will be more room on the 'floor' for the bigger stuff. I would also like to find some kind of piece that would let me put lots of plants along the wall of the house (up and down, so some kind of framework that would hold plants, possibly shelves, possibly not). OK, ideally, I'd have tons of money to throw at this, and I'd refinish the porch, add a pergola (given condo association approval, but that's likely), and have a landscape designer (or someone with a better eye than mine, at least) work with me to have a beautiful layout of plants that leaves room for people.