Re: Creating your own pocket garden

Maybe let's define first for the benefit of everyone or our garden newbies what really is a pocket garden ?

A Pocket Garden is a small place in your house, terrace, balcony or your veranda or side of your entrance in apartments, townhouses or condos. It may also be a spare or dead space in your yard waiting for you to liven it up by planting a couple of flowering ornamental plants or orchids. 😉

A Pocket Garden can be an indoor or an outdoor space where you can plant or place your favorite bromeliads, your collections of bonsais, varieties of cactus, of ferns maybe or possibly several flowering roses to be proud off. It may also be a small place or area where one can plant vegetables or your favorite herbs.:p

A Pocket Garden is perfect for dwellers in townhouses, condominiums or apartments with little space to spare and for plant lovers also wanting some greeneries inside their abode. In small places or corner one can make some groupings of different shapes and sizes of decorative clay pots or ceramic vases with plantings in them. One need not be a professional gardener or a landscape architect, all it needs is ones imagination and creativity to put up your personal pocket garden, sky is the limit since all the ingredients of a pocket garden are just around us. :bee:

HERE ARE SOME TIPS FOR A SUCCESSFUL POCKET GARDEN :

~~~ There should be good sunlight.
~~~ Enough water supply.
~~~ Your plants need food too so fertilize them ones or twice a month.
~~~ Create a theme when making a pocket garden.
~~~ Keep in mind when you do groupings, tall plants or vases are at the back and small
plants or clay pots should be placed in the foreground.
~~~ Choose plants that can be easily manage.
~~~ Be imaginative in choosing plants that will compliment your garden theme.
~~~ Do research on the internet, plenty information regarding this topic.
~~~ If you have your pocket garden indoors, you can double a plant so that you can take
one outside for sun light.

Re: Creating your own pocket garden

here is my seedling bed..planted around 45 seeds all in all in this junk styro fruit box lying elsewhere..took it and found some good use..

all seeds germinated and they are about a week old (tomatoes)...

i still do not know how to grow tomatoes but seeing these tiny plants grow uncontrollably makes me excited to ask those who knows about gardening or two..

tia

Re: Creating your own pocket garden

HI THERE AGAIN doc V,

I am thrilled for you taking time out to plant tomato seeds, I just hope that you can sustain and have enough time to care for them while they grow in your clay pots or your prepared planting plots.

You may not know it but I love eating tomatoes and they are so good for the body, they are so good and delicious when mixed with fresh vegetable salads which I always prepare for my family every Sunday. This fruit is very versatile that you get so much vitamins and also fiber from it, its great too for cooking or for ensaladas together with white onions and thinly sliced ampalaya, so yummy specially if your viands are fried fish or pork chop or even fried boneless bangus. :drool:

By the way do you know the kind or variety of your tomato seeds b'coz there are different kinds of variety and also different ways to plant and care for tomatoes. There's the variety na pang tag ulan and there's a variety na pang tag araw o tag init. They also have names for different varieties like Marikina, Ponderosa, Marglobe, John Baer, Pearson, and Pearl Harbor.

Doc V, if you planted 45 tomato seeds and seeing from yours pics that they are all alive and growing fast, I suggest you start preparing 45 pcs of black plastic pots, these are sold at mall hardware sa garden section nila, I think it is being sold by the 10s na naka tale.

You will be needing this for your first transplanting of your seedlings once they start to reach a height of 5cm or more or let's say apat na ang mga initial na dahon. its gonna be one seedling each for one plastic pot, you will have to use an old tea spoon to dig in under its roots and try to be very careful not to tear the roots apart or break the main stem, when that happens, then its gone and useless to plant. After transplanting place it in a shaded area where you can water each seedling moderately, don't let the rain soak the seedlings, they will easily rot. There you have to wait again for it to grow up to 20cm or more and by that time you will see plenty new leaves maturing and root will be coming out already from the hole underneath the plastic pots.

Maybe by this time you have decided where to plant it permanently. It can be on a really large plastic planting bag or clay pots or you have already a prepared planting plot for your growing tomato seedling. This time doc V, transplanting of your seedlings will be a lot easier. you will have to just put the plastic pots upside down and tap it lightly so that the seedling together with the soil will slowly slide out of the plastic pot, but be very careful again not to damage the roots that are exposed and also be careful not to break or snap the main trunk, if you are successful in doing this then you can now transfer and plant your tomato seedlings on your preffered planting plot or plastic bag. :2thumbsup:

And if all the 45 seedlings were successfully transplanted, then now you start your journey in caring for your 45 babies so to speak. Do fertilize them after 15 days and you'll see its improvement, leaves will start to grow and the plant itself will be growing fast. :bee:

OK Doc V, enjoy your initial plunge to vegetable gardening and hope it become successful.
If you have any other questions to ask then just shoot and I'll try my best to give you the right answers for your tomatoes. :goodluck:

Re: Creating your own pocket garden

@rosy,

thanks for all the input..ninanamnam ko pa lahat ng sinabi mo..the way i see it, two times ako mag transfer..sayang dapat tig isang seed na lang hinulog ko sa seed hole..baka mahirapan ako paghiwalayin ang mga seedlings ko!:eek:

the package label says..hybrid tomatoes, diamante max...wow baka diamond ang bunga 'neto!:cool:

ok will take photos of the "growth and development".

:thanks:

Re: Creating your own pocket garden

Rosy,

I have a dirty kitchen at the back of my apartment which is naturally lit but covered with translucent polycarbonate. Would that classify as a place with good sunlight or does it need to direct sunlight?

I am interested in herbs (edible) and I'm not sure what is easy to take care and one that may not require much space like a tomato.

Also, what are the drawbacks when creating a pocket garden as I am afraid it may invite insects and the like.

Re: Creating your own pocket garden

Hey jarod,

It could be possible as a source of light needed but not really good sunlight, may I suggest that you go ahead and plant some and do some experimentation, see how your herbs will react to your light source because there are some herbs that cannot withstand direct sunlight and there are some that can.

Sometimes gardening also does entails experimentation, trial and error and patience but after seeing, learning, and knowing how each plant reacts with the environment, the way we water it, the way we fertilize it and the kind of soil we use, then maybe we can now balance what will be good for our plants and possibly on the way to becoming a good gardener.

If you are dead set on planting some edible herbs, plant it on several black plastic bags used for seedlings para hindi masyadong expensive since nasa experimentation stage ka pa lamang, then maybe you can ask Doc V to make you a metal rack, he he he he 😀 maybe 3 layers or more ,like a stair, so there you now have a vertical pocket garden, he he he he :p 🙂

Please don't think of the drawbacks when creating a pocket garden, think positive always, think of how lovely and beautiful your pocket garden will come out. If you are thinking of insects, we have naman water based insecticide that will not be harmful to the environment. There are many ways to create a pocket garden in a small given space, you may opt to just plant on several beautifully designed clay pots or ceramics lining your wall, maybe planted with beautiful flowering bromeliads or fragrant emitting plant like sampaguitas. With little space to spare, you can do vertical gardening. You can hang your collections of ferns, bromeliads or favorite herbs or some creeping succulents, or maybe some bunch of peperomias and its varieties on the wall. Many possibilities really, you can even have a dry bed pocket garden with just a few plants as accents. 😉

Re: Creating your own pocket garden

[COLOR="SeaGreen"]Here are some pics of pocket gardens scattered in my place of gardening, hope these would inspire other green thumbers viewing this thread.

Re: Creating your own pocket garden

[COLOR="SeaGreen"]Second set of pics of pocket gardens.

Re: Creating your own pocket garden

[COLOR="SeaGreen"]Some more pics of pocket gardens.

These pocket gardens are outside the confines of my house and they are just scattered around the property and hope they can inspire other garden enthusiasts.

I'll be posting also sets of pocket gardens using pots inside the confines of a house. Thank you and enjoy the greeneries.

Re: Creating your own pocket garden

here is my seedling bed..planted around 45 seeds all in all in this junk styro fruit box lying elsewhere..took it and found some good use..

all seeds germinated and they are about a week old (tomatoes)...

i still do not know how to grow tomatoes but seeing these tiny plants grow uncontrollably makes me excited to ask those who knows about gardening or two..

tia

Gardening is also something I love, but the same problem, I get confused how to grow them, I get confused in about the amount of soil and also about root, how much are to be dig into the soil.

Re: Creating your own pocket garden

Mas maganda pa yata ang gardening hobby. Walang metal dust, walang saw dust, walang toxic fumes and walang safety hazard sa power tools usage ...... keep posting bro.

Re: Creating your own pocket garden

Mas maganda pa yata ang gardening hobby. Walang metal dust, walang saw dust, walang toxic fumes and walang safety hazard sa power tools usage ...... keep posting bro.

best of all... very limited tools to collect err buy 😀

Re: Creating your own pocket garden

g

eto ang sa backyard ko mga bossing stress reliever ko rin ang pagtatanim pag nai stress na kakaisip sa mga DIY projects ko

Re: Creating your own pocket garden

HE HE HE HE, Bro may green tumbs ka rin pala, that's good and gardening is a great way also of stress reliever and also a great way to commune with nature. KEEP it up and enjoy caring for your plants and someday they will reward you back.