Pea in a Bottle?

Yes, I said pea in a bottle, not the other!

(Click pictures to enlarge)

Several weeks ago when I was looking for containers to start my vegetables in, I was messing around and stuck some dirt in this soda bottle, dropped a sugar snap pea in it, and another small bit of dirt.

I never expected anything to happen, it really was just for fun. The joke was on me when it not only sprouted, but grew bigger and stronger than any of the others thus far!

Since the glass was clear, the seed was exposed to more sunlight even in the small amount of dirt that it was in, so it sprouted UNDER the soil before even breaking ground. You can see it if you look closely in the picture on the left.

It grew quite tall, probably 7-8" above the height of the bottle itself, but unfortunately I left it out in direct sun one afternoon for too long, and it literally fried due to the glass.



I was disappointed that I didn't have it long enough to flower and bear fruit, but I'm glad that I did get several pictures for posterity.

So, what do you think of my 'pea in a bottle'?









On a more serious note, the rest of the snap peas I put directly into the ground are doing quite well.

Just Like Children ...

... my plants are growing at an amazing rate.

(Click photos to enlarge)



The two plants here are the same two in the blue pails in the earlier discussion.




I took this shot just a few minutes ago and you can see how much more they've grown. The two in the back are the same two you see above in an earlier photo, and the four in front are those I just 'potted up' from the miscellaneous smaller containers.

These containers are large enough to accommodate the tomato cages (that I found free on the property!), so they won't have to be moved again.

The secret to getting nice, thick stalks is to set the plant in deeper when repotting, even going past the first leaves. New roots will form around every part of the stalk that is beneath soil, and more roots will mean a stronger plant.

I don't add dirt all the way to the top of the pot as that leaves me room to add more soil as the plants grow even taller, thereby strengthening the stalk even more.



Here are three more that I found a small spot for alongside the house.



I put rocks around it to keep the cat from using it as her potty box - so far, so good!



This is a current photo of the cucumber that you see in the earlier photo in the child's refrigerator. I think he's doing quite well!








Here are three smaller cucumber plants that I put into the ground beside the house. The little green spot in the middle of the photo is lettuce that is just sprouting, and if you look to the right by the fence, you'll see more sugar snap peas coming up. Yum!

How to Build a Tomato Plant, From the 'Ground' Up!

(Click photos to enlarge)

With my limited gardening experience, I'd never grown tomato from seed and have always been told it was difficult to do and I'd be better off purchasing the plants from one of various local sources. Since I had plenty of time by starting things indoors, I figured I'd buy a pack of seed and try them, and if they didn't work out, I'd still have more than enough time to purchase plants by the time the weather indicated it was time they go outside. Obviously starting from seed would be more frugal, as the cost for one pack of seed is about half the cost of a single plant.

I did some reading and found several tricks to starting tomato seed successfully, and I have living proof that they work! First, I found that tomatoes love eggshells, as they provide a significant amount of calcium. There are several ways to introduce tomatoes to that source, but I opted to start them off right away by planting the seed in the eggshell itself. I believe I had 100% germination (or very close to it) and as they sprouted, I lovingly called them egg babies, or eggplants!

Once they develop the second 'true' leaves and are ready to 'pot up', you can just tap the shell on the bottom to loosen it, then plant the entire eggshell with the seedling within. That way you are not disturbing delicate little roots, and the seedling will still get the benefit of calcium from the shell as it leaches into the surrounding soil.


I started my seeds at various times so I will (hopefully!) have tomatoes coming in throughout the summer. Here is a shot of one 'egg baby' with it's big brother that is already in his forever home.

Whether already in eggshells or not, you can still give the seedlings a calcium boost by adding more eggshell to the soil at any time. Well before the weather permitted putting them outside full time, I worked the soil by adding used coffee grounds and eggshells whenever I had them. Worms love coffee grounds, who are of course good for any garden, as they assist in providing proper aeration for a healthy root system.


For on the spot nourishment, after digging your hole in the larger pot or the ground, simply drop a few eggshells into the hole before placing your seedling and refilling with soil. Here's a shot of my family of tomatoes in various stages of development. I believe the two in the above photo are the two in the larger blue buckets here.

A New Home

As my charges got larger and were ready to go outside, I kept my eyes open for more interesting ways to re-pot them without additional expense.

I was running errands in town one day and noticed this large plastic rectangular object on the street that someone was throwing away. I immediately had visions of sugar plums (ok, cucumbers and peppers) sprouting in it, so stopped to pop it into my trunk to give it a new life.

It turned out to be a child's plastic refrigerator - how appropriate for my veggie babies!

I made sure it was cleaned out, drilled a few holes in the bottom, filled it with garden soil and settled two pepper plants, a tomato seedling and a bush cucumber into their new home.



I think they were happy here, as they have grown considerably since first taking up residence and the tomato plant was recently put into the ground.

In the Beginning ...

I'm 50 yrs old and I've had a garden just twice before in my life; the first one was planted and maintained mainly by my (ex)husband while I was still on active duty in the Marine Corps in southern Maryland, so I didn't get involved too much until it came time to cook the bounty. I don't even remember what we had except corn and beans.

The last dirt I had my hands in was while I lived in Minnesota a few years ago, and I did help with the planting, but I mainly deferred to my (ex)husband who grew up on a farm. We bought tomato and pepper plants, and planted yellow squash, cucumber, cantaloupe, beans and sugar snap peas from seed. Since he worked long hours with a long commute, I did the bulk of the weeding and such.

That's the extent of my experience as a gardener. Until now ...

Tom and I are renting a small home in a relatively rural area, but we have no room for a 'real' garden and I don't think the landlord (who lives next door) would appreciate us tearing up the property too much.

Enter - the container garden

Money is extremely tight so I was determined to do this as cheaply as possible so that I could help with the food budget, not create additional expense. Since I started well before the last frost, I decided to do everything from seed and save the few dollars it would likely cost me for each plant. I bought seeds for tomato, green beans (and a purple variety too!), sugar snap peas, banana pepper and bell pepper in a variety of colors and set out to making things grow.

I started my seeds indoors pretty early in every small container I could get my hands on. You can see my creative genius evidenced in the photo - chicken bucket and coleslaw container from KFC, cardboard canisters from hot chocolate, muffin tin - even the bottom half of a plastic jug that kitty litter comes in. Hey, whatever works, right? I didn't have a way to hang the grow light, so I came up with the idea to clamp it to the top of an unused dog crate and place the little critters inside.

My captive seedlings:

I guess it worked because most of the seedlings were ready to go outside well before the fickle Ohio weather decided to fully cooperate.