Salad in a Pot

Our garden is rather small. We have a fair amount of yard, most of which we don't mow, but our garden is comparatively tiny for folks living out in the country. I pack it, of course, with more vegetables, flowers, and herbs than perhaps I should. I like the bountiful feeling of green paired with all those blooms leaping everywhere, along with the fantastic number of things I get to harvest. The garden feels so incredibly alive to me (bees, butterflies, birds, cats, and chickens at the gate!) that I don't mind the balancing act to get that one last ripe tomato.

Despite this, our garden still feels somewhat small to me, and in the spring I find it hard to resist planting MORE! Our neighbors over at Frog Holler Organic Farm sell seedlings in the spring, and I simply can't resist. I always pick up too many to fit in the beds.

This past summer was no different. So, I came up with a new idea for my garden. Pots!

I filled pots with a mix of composted horse manure and compost from our bins. Then I threw in flowers (sometimes edible, sometimes not), spare lettuce or kale or chard, herbs like parsley or basil, mulched with straw, and set them out.

Ta-dah! Within moments my spare plants had a home, more salad was in future, and I'd expanded my garden space quite simply. Plus, the pots were easy to bring into the porch when the weather got chilly extending the season for fresh herbs quite some time. Hooray!