Another project: Sub-irrigated bucket containters? Bring it!

I will just start at the beginning, and you will have to trust that this will eventually get to the point so clearly stated in the subject line. Ready? Lets go!

So, a few weeks ago I saw my friend Bettie for dinner. Bettie is an amazing backyard gardener living in Silverlake, who may be getting into biodynamic farming! Interesting. (Any other biodynamic backyard farmers out there? If yes, I want to write a story on you! Contact me!) 

Bettie’s specialty is growing artichokes and melons. The melons love her yard. And this year she had some volunteer cantaloupe plants that sort of popped up out of nowhere. So, rather than chucking them on the compost, she decided to give them away, and at dinner, she gave one to me.

I love the idea of growing my own melons, but the ladies behind Bountiful Container  (my bible) caution against it. Melons take up too much space, need too much dirt and too much water for the average container gardener. And so there I was with a very nice melon plant and no where to plant it. Then I remembered! My friends Michael and Jessica have a sunny, pretty children’s garden on their property with nothing planted in it yet, and what would be more perfect for a children’s garden than a cantaloupe plant? NOTHING! Kids love cantaloupe! And so I asked them if they wanted the plant.

And now we are getting to the almost point: Michael and Jessica currently have a weathered plastic toy kitchen in their garden that Jonah (my baby boy) played with once at a party at their house, and he loved it! I told Michael I needed to get Jonah a kitchen just like it and he said, “Don’t. Take ours.”

I was supposed to trade them some left over pieces of birthday cake for the kitchen, but then too much time went by and the cake was no longer good. Michael said I could just have the kitchen, but it feels so much nicer to be able to offer them a nice healthy cantaloupe plant in return. Everyone wins!

And now to the real point! If we have this kitchen, and put it on the deck, then maybe it will keep Jonah busy enough for me to work on making a sub-irrigated bucket platner like this:

The guy from Inside Urban Green says no power tools involved!