An Experiment in Container Gardening

I have a really nice porch that stretches across the entire back of my townhouse, and last summer I had a small table and a chair out there.  It was a great space to enjoy a cup of tea or a smoothie and read my Sunday newspaper.  This year, I decided to experiment with container gardening.  Partly because I have tons o' space on my porch, partly to see if I can grow something edible, and partly because I think flowers would make my summertime Sunday ritual even better.  

One of my co-worker's kids was selling plants from Gerten's greenhouses for a spring school fundraiser last month.  Perfect timing! I ordered two cherry tomato plants and three 6-packs of mixed-color snapdragons.  (I love, love, love snapdragons!  Pretty, amazing color, and such a cool shape.)  The plants arrived on the 16th and I got them on Monday the 19th.  They lived on the deck in their (sad) little containers until this past weekend, when I actually had some time to devote to them.  

This Sunday I went to the local Menards garden center and bought some gardening supplies, including some smallish pots, a few bamboo u-shaped stakes, a few flowers, and some potting soil.  And then I got planting. Well, OK.  You got me.  First, I finally took my Christmas lights down off my deck railing.  Immediately after that, though, I got planting!

The photo above is a panoramic shot of my brand new set o' pots.  The large tan pots are the tomatoes.  The small, square turquoise pots are pink and yellow rose moss.  The smaller tan pots are geraniums, alternating white and "star."  From what I could tell by not seeing a photo or a real version of the star geranium in full bloom, I think they will be a bright pink and white, but I'm not sure.  The round turquoise pots are the mixed snapdragons.  (In case you are wondering, the cushion for my deck chair is a turquoise-y color, which is why the pots are the color they are....)      

I'm really excited to see how everything grows and blooms, and plan to post photos as they grow.  How cool would it be to have a time lapse set of photos showing growth?  Maybe I'll start taking a photo every day or every other day when I get home from work.  And hopefully by the end of the summer I will be eating my tiny tomatoes and declaring container gardening a success that must be repeated year after year!