Container gardening vs planting out

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Herbs tend to grow well in containers. Unfortunately I don’t grow herbs well. This pot of parsley was one of my rare successes.

When it comes to planting edible plants, I’ve been a fan of growing them in the ground – my reasoning being that when you give a plant more space to grow, it will be happier and more productive in good earth. This has definitely worked for some plants, yet, not all. I would have considered the failures as experiments gone bad, except for the fact that some of the very same plants have done well in other gardens in Singapore, and grown in containers.

Take the winter melon plant as an example. I cleared a patch of lawn and thought I did a decent job fertilizing the soil before planting my first winter melon plant. It grew and bore one harvestable fruit before it slowly died off. The Weeds, on the other hand, grew their winter melon plant in a container, and at last count, have grown two fruits – although the first was smaller than ours.

I thought I’d try keeping the next plant in a pot, just to compare against our first plant. This time, I also added a lot of aged compost and have it in a more shaded location at the moment. These seem to agree with the plant, because it has been growing quite rapidly and looks nice and healthy.

However, I’ve since seen the post on Chawanmushi’s blog that mentions the 20KG winter melon that they harvested at their community garden, and to say that I’m green with envy barely begins to express the depth of my awe of the fruit!

Correct me if I’m wrong, Chawan, but I believe the winter melon plants were grown in the ground. It makes sense that when a plant is able to grow a complex root system in good earth, it will be able to produce good-sized fruits.

Half of that theory is true with my snake gourd plant. That vine is extensive! I’ve already complained about it in a previous post. And just look at the main stem of the plant:

The stem of the snake gourd vine is thicker than a thin bamboo stick, and the thick vine goes all the way to the top of the trellis. No wonder the vine is able to spread so much!

It’s thick and woody, and growing in a bed that I had taken time to make and “bake” more than a week beforehand with mature compost, volcanic soil, blood and bone meal, and some chicken dung. If I had done this even earlier, it probably would have been even more fertile, but over here, weeds sprout up in no time, so that was as long as I was willing to let the bed sit unoccupied for. I can only assume that the soil has been improving as the vine has grown, based on its enthusiastic growth.

So, coming back to the topic of this post – I think container gardening has its perks in that you have more immediate control of the plant’s growing media and rate of growth, and you can utilize area much better. I think container gardeners would be able to grow four to five different plants in the amount of space my snake gourd vine now occupies…

I’m still not entirely sold on the idea of growing some fruiting plants in pots, though.

The butternut pumpkin vine starting to root along the stem!

Some, of course, don’t need lots of space to grow in, so I would put them in pots – plants like cucumbers and long beans, for example.

Vining fruiting plants like winter melon and the winged bean can grow to over 6 metres, and accordingly need to be able to grow extensive roots to feed themselves. I haven’t tested growing them in containers yet, but think they could do well in large containers. I’m keeping my mind open on that. After all, our first bittergourd plant that sprouted wild grew relatively well in a large dragon jar/pot.

An unexpected success for me – the white pakchoi grew to a decent size and age! Pity I didn’t take a photo when it was bigger than this…

Other plants that I think absolutely have to be planted out are those with meandering habits, like pumpkins and sweet potatoes. They take root along their stems, which helps to strengthen the plants. I used to think they sprouted from a single source and that the fruits like the sweet potatoes would originate at the source. Oh, was I wrong! Maybe the plants needed time to mature before they could start developing the tubers, because I found baby sweet potatoes somewhere in the middle of the stem when I was pulling out the sweet potato patch last year. It’s still a learning experience for me…

Vegetables we have grown successfully in containers include herbs (of course) and leafy veggies like kangkong and pakchoi. We will continue with this formula – although, to be a little perverse, I am going to try growing leafy veggies out in the garden just to see which pests will annoy them so I will know for sure. After all, there are more than enough seeds to spare in each packet of seeds we buy!

I don’t know about you, but I like that while I have been growing veggies somewhat seriously for over two years now, there is still more to learn with each new growing season. That new understanding should help me improve on the next crop, and isn’t that what gardening should be about?

Addendum: I just came across this article from BBC Nature News: ‘Stunted’ pot plants cannot reach full potential (30 June 2012) that explores the effects of growing plants in containers.

© 2012 curiousgardener.com All rights reserved.


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The first Hami melon flower

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The first flower bud starting to form.

Our Hami melon plants have finally started to bud. If you recall, there are two plants – one that was grown from seed, and the other from a cutting taken from the main plant. The former has already budded and flowered once while the latter is just starting to bud.

Oh look, the petals are yellow – like cucumbers, bittergourds and kiwanos. It’s a typical cucurbitaceae!

They are typical cucurbitaceae flowers, reminding me very much of the Kiwano plant that we grew last year, but with less prickly stems. Oh, the stems are hairy, but they don’t poke the way the kiwano bristles did. Thank goodness!

Side view of the open flower.

The flowers, by themselves, are almost indistinguishable from cucumber, bittergourd and kiwano flowers. I say “almost” because there may be a way to separately identify them, but I’m not aware of it.

Front view of the hami melon flower.

The plants are somewhat scrawny-looking, so I don’t expect fruit flowers to show up just yet. Besides, the male flowers usually take the lead before the female flowers make their grand entrance. Stay tuned for that announcement!

© 2012 curiousgardener.com All rights reserved.


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Begone, heatwave!

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Lost potential – all those mulberries that didn’t have a chance to grow and tickle my tastebuds.

The temperature has been up for the last couple of weeks, and several of our plants have been under a lot of stress. My anticipated bumper crop of mulberries literally withered before my eyes, so I’ve moved the plant to a less sunny spot and have pruned it once more to try to induce another round of fruiting.

The poor simba bean plant under double attack – first by something that ate the leaves, and then by the heat. Boo-hiss.

The simba bean plants have also died off, despite heavy watering. I guess it was the climate that did them in, not a lack of water. They were already at a disadvantage because something had been eating the leaves. Sigh. Back to the drawing board…

My baby shark fin melon plant survived its transplant to a bigger pot, but it looks like the heat may be claiming another victim, because the lowermost part of the stem is starting to wither. I’ve lightly buried part of the good part of the stem in the hopes that it will grow new roots, but because I’m not too optimistic, I’ve sown a few seeds to start new plants.

Everything else has been watered heavily every day. Well, not indiscriminately so. You have to know what each plant needs, because too much watering can cause some plants to rot. Thank goodness some of the plants have been doing well despite the heat:

Our second generation winter melon plant is one of the few happy plants in the garden. After transplant, it was placed under the peacock trees to recuperate, and it seems that the shade helped it immensely. Just look at how eagerly it’s growing!

My current pride and joy – the beet plants – have been doing well. The leaves wilt on hot days if the plants aren’t watered by lunchtime, so I’ve been as careful as possible to take care of them. I just love the vibrant leaves!

I’m happy that there has finally been a break in the weather. The forecast is for afternoon showers for three to four days …but, periods of consecutive dry days are also predicted. Well, variety is the spice of life, and the plants will thrive on the changes in the weather. I just hope that there will be few plant casualties.

© 2012 curiousgardener.com All rights reserved.

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Why re-potting is necessary

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What happens when a plant has no confines – it covers more ground and grows as big as possible – our wild raphis in its heyday.

We used to have a pot of the raphis palm plant that my dad decided to plant in the garden. As most plants do when set free, the plant multiplied and grew into a huge clump that was easily over 3 metres tall. It was dense and became a nesting place for different birds, but was difficult to maintain because of the tough cane stems and hard, fibrous roots. And, it spread quite rapidly by runners that tangled with each other over time. We finally called it quits and had the plants removed, keeping one small pot once again.

I noticed recently that the plants in the pot had become smaller and thinner – a sure sign that the plant was root bound. Indeed, the raphis had been trying to break free of the confines of the pot, cracking it. Luckily, it was a plastic pot, albeit a tough one, but it appeared it was past time to split and re-pot the plants.

Getting the plants out of the pot was a huge struggle. With normal plants, you can simply slip a spade along the inside of the pot and wiggle it to loosen the plant roots. This, however, was an unusual situation. When I got tired of attacking the inside of the pot, I tipped the whole plant on its side to prepare to tug it out. Not the most advisable thing to do because it can traumatize the plant, but desperate times called for desperate measures.

Above, the matted roots from the lower part of the pot; below, the mat of roots that had been growing on the exterior of the bottom of the pot. That’s what I call root bound!

That was when I saw that the roots of the raphis had been growing on the exterior of the bottom of the pot – so neatly that they did not show beyond the edge of the pot! I cut that away and was left with a round mat of roots. Only after this was I able to extract the plant from the pot.

There was a thick mass of pot-shaped roots at the base of the plants. With soft-stemmed plants like mint, you would cut away about half the height of the roots before splitting the plant and re-potting it. With the troublesome raphis, I cut away about a third of the height because the roots were that tough, then split and then trimmed away more height and dead roots.

The plants have been split into four. We’ll definitely continue to keep them because we like their foliage. What I won’t do, however, is wait quite so long before splitting them again. The plants that I just split had been unattended for about 8 years!

So, if you notice your potted plants getting smaller and thinner despite fertilizing them, know that it’s a sign that you need to split them up. Cutting away the lower part of the matted roots is alright because plants are naturally hardy and will always strive to stay alive.

© 2012 curiousgardener.com All rights reserved.


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