Bucket Garden

Making raised beds takes a lot of money and time. An alternative we decided to try is bucket gardening. I took inspiration from many video's on the subject on YouTube.com.  I was using all the free buckets I could find but I also purchased 5 gallon buckets from home depot from under $3 a bucket. My cousin found me even larger buckets to garden in and now I am trying to plant corn, cantaloupe, watermelon and okra in some of those. A few stores willing to give me buckets for my bucket garden was Homeland deli area, and Braum's. I think this is an idea we can have a nicer garden in kindergarten, especially when teaching in the inner city, the buckets can be protected from vandalism. Problems in bucket gardening, knowing how much to water, I fear we have been over watering as we feared they would dry out all to fast. So far some of my plants do not look as good as they should it makes me sad I am hoping to find a way to pump these few plants up so they can be plentiful.  Benefits have been isolating plants with insect problems and treating them, mulch stays in place, I can move them around the yard to get them the sun/shade they need, protect them from serious storms, load them in the back of the truck and move them as a group take them out when needing to haul! So far my best plants have been one of the jalapeno plants, cherry tomato's, and two small bell pepper plants and producing bell's but are not growing tall enough so far.

My raised beds are a good investment overtime. I have two large beds one with summer squash and one for cucumbers.  I plan on adding one a month, even through the winter months as that will give me 14 by this time next year. I also have two tire potato towers started and doing well.