Patio Garden Success Kit 1 month after planting

This spring my family and I set up the Patio Garden Success Kit that we offer at Clean Air Gardening. I was excited to try it out because we have a two year old son and our lives are pretty hectic these days. So any time-saving device for gardening is greatly appreciated.

The kit includes a large self-watering planter and a “nutrient patch” that also works as a weed barrier. The nutrient patch has these long tubes of fertilizer attached to it so that the fertilizer slowly seeps into the soil over the growing season. The kit also includes instructions on how to properly space your plants depending on what you grow.

We read the planting guide and decided to purchase a combination of herbs and tomatoes for the planter. Please note: the soil and starter plants are not included with your kit.

Patio Garden Success Kit just after planting

We planted a small, cherry-type tomato plant. I lost the tag so I can’t tell you what variety it is unfortunately. I do remember that it said “great for patio/container gardens.”

We also picked three herbs. Epazote, which is a culinary herb used frequently in Mexican cooking, Chocolate Mint, and Rue, which is an attractive ornamental with medicinal properties.

The planter was very easy to assembly. The instructions are very clear and the planting guide is useful. To assemble it, you snap in the green plastic screens into the lower half of the planter so you can fill up the two raised areas with soil. These two areas are where the water will filter up into the top part of the planter.

So, we filled up these two areas with soil, snapped on the top part, and followed the instructions to complete the planter.

During assembly, you have to be a little careful so you don’t get the fertilizer tubes on the “nutrient patch” wet before installing it, because they will dissolve. Once the nutrient patch is in place over the soil, it’s ok to water.

It took us maybe 20 minutes to get the whole thing set up and planted. We filled up the reservoir with water, set it up on blocks and let it grow.

Just over a month later, our tomatoes are starting to produce fruit, and our herbs are big and leafy. As far as the herbs go, the Epazote is probably doing the best, followed by the mint.

While this is a self-watering system that you supposedly don’t need to water often, I’ve been watering the edges of the planter a bit. This is because our daytime temperatures now (July) are hovering around 95 degrees F with very low humidity, so the edges of the planter tend to dry out. If your area gets more rain or has higher moisture levels, you shouldn’t have much to worry about.

Another thing I would recommend is to be careful if you need to move the planter to a different location. I moved the planter to a sunnier location after our shade tree fully leafed out and started to shade it a little too much. However, I was in a hurry and lifted the planter by the top section. There was still some water in it, and so the reservoir popped off. The two planters hold together very well for general use, but if you’re going to move it, make sure there’s no water in the lower half and pick it up from the bottom!

Having used some common sense, I would have avoided this. Oh well! However, it did let me get a look at the planter from the inside. The roots were growing nicely into the two areas of soil on the lower level, seeking out water.

After that little incident, I just quickly snapped the planter back together and put it in its new, sunnier location. I hope to be harvesting the first batch of tomatoes in just a few weeks. We’ve harvesting the herbs and drying them out, in addition to using the fresh Epazote for corn casseroles and beans.

SUMMARY: This is a great planter for those who like to garden but don’t have much time. It works as advertised to grow big, productive vegetables and herbs. I would imagine that it works just as well for ornamentals. In hotter, drier climates, supplemental watering may be necessary, but not frequent. It’s easy to use, and easy to assemble. Move your planter carefully by picking it up from the bottom when the resevoir is empty!

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 11th, 2007 at 6:47 pm and is filed under Gardening Products, Products We're Using. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.