Redneck Tomato Garden using 5 Gallon Buckets

To create a tomato container garden you are going to need:

• 1 five gallon bucket per plant
• peat or compost
• fillers such as empty water bottles or soda cans or even beer cans will work
• drill
• small to medium growing tomato plants (I used Roma tomatoes)
• water
• sunshine

For the good ole' upright tomato plantings.

First dig some empty cans or plastic bottles out of your recycle bin.  Busch Light cans work just as good as any!

Drill 5-6 holes in the bottom of the bucket for water drainage.

Then fill your five gallon bucket up till there is about 12 inches of space left for dirt.

Add your compost or potting soil up to about 5 inches from the top.

Place your plant in the center of the bucket.

Cover roots and stem with soil up to the top of the bucket.  It will pack down after a few waterings and you may want to add more soil.

Plant in a location that will get at least 12 hours of sun a day.

Water every 7-10 days if needed.

How to Dress up Your Front Door

April showers bring May flowers!
Containers can add beautiful colors and interest to your outdoor area.
Here are my four planters that I used to add life to my front porch and back deck.
The trick is to combine three types of flowers and plants:

• Spiller
• Filler
• Thriller

Having the spiller cascading down the planter will make you container look lush and elegant. The filler will keep you from being able to see most of the dirt in the planter. And the thriller should be a tall, attention grabbing plant or flower. The more showy the better!

On the front porch, in my larger containers, for my "spiller" I used a combination of lime green and purple sweet potato vines. You can stick with just one color, but I really like them used together. My "filler" is yellow-blossom Million Bells aka. callibrachoa. It is related to the spreading petunia, but has smaller blooms. The spreading petunia would also make a good filler but doesn't have generally have as many blooms. For my "thriller" I went for fuschia colored geraniums.
This is three sweet potato vines, two Million Bells, and one large geranium in a planter with a volume of about 5 gallons.

On the back deck in my smaller planters I used one sweet potato vine, two white allysom for the "filler" and one tall, spiky Dracena grass for my "thriller". These containers are probably only about one gallon volume.