Where's The Fruit?!

A neighbor passed by the other day and asked, "Where's the fruit?" Well, I planted low producing, late maturity tomatoes, but I've had some cukes, greenbeans (on my second flush) and even a carrot or two. The cherry tomatoes, despite their dismally diseased state, keep producing.

Pickling Cucumbers and German Striped tomatoes

Carrots and cherry tomatoes

Plan B: Greenbelt Nature Center

Because the Native Plant Demonstration Garden was closed, I decided to head for the fairly new Greenbelt Nature Center. To get there from the S44 Travis Avenue stop, I walked up East on Travis about 300 yards or so and picked up the S61 toward St. George.

I take this about a mile (I could've walked) to Rockland Ave. I got off the bus and realized that where I needed to go is without sidewalks and the traffic heavy, constant, and not at all used to pedestrians. Plus, there's no shoulders on the road. Way to welcome your park visitors, S.I. To boot, there were no signs for the Nature Center from the direction I was coming. I knew I needed to walk east, but didn't like that feeling of uneasiness as I travel in traffic to an unknown place. Staten Island is largely a car owner's borough. It is designed around this. After the brief, but hairy, walk I arrived at the well-groomed Nature Center.

I ate lunch, used the rather clean, un-NYC Parks-like bathroom, and looked around the center. The place is definitely built around children and I might add there were virtually no adults without children (there was a child's birthday party going on). There was information about the local fauna and flora, including an Asian Longhorn Beetle display.

The Asian Longhorn Beetle Display

The park trails were empty, almost eerily so. It was a rather nice summer weekend and no one was taking a hike. Maybe everyone wanted the beach or something?

Patches of fern are found trail-side.

The woods reminded me somewhat of the woods I grew up with, but with stands of hardwoods that didn't grow in Suffolk County. There was the smooth, gray bark of the Beech tree, the similarly smooth gray of young Tulip Poplars, mighty large Maples, stands of Oaks, and Sassafras too. Sassafras grew in the woods around my childhood home and some leaves emit a strong lemon scent when you tear them. No worries Parks, this Sassafras I left alone.

Bark of the Beech tree and Sassafras leaves

There were patches of ferns amongst the trees, glacial erratic boulders with moss, and grass along the trail.

Glacial erratics in the trail bed and a mystery grass

The trails were familiar in the way that they never seem to give in to the plants, hard and easily traveled with sneakers. Less mosquitoes than I would have expected as well, really very little bugging me. There was, however, a good dose of poison ivy along the trail -so beware.

Poison Ivy growing up a trail-side tree.

The trails I walked seemed great for mountain biking, but this is either not allowed or contentious in the Greenbelt system (or all NYC parks?) for the obvious reasons of slow moving hikers/fast moving bikers, trail erosion, and forest degradation. Some mountain bikers are working to change this, but until then, keep the bikes at home.

Erosion along the blue trail

After a round on parts of the blue, white, and red trails (how patriotic), I decided to head for the bus, rain was on its way. By the time I traversed the shoulder-less road back to the bus stop, it was raining lightly. In 5 minutes I picked up the S61 -a straight shot to St. George and its ferry terminal where I just made the 3pm ferry.

On the way back I got a good look at those Olafur Eliasson waterfalls.

Our NYC Parks, Staten Island Native Plant Demonstration Garden

I started my day bright and early to make the trek, finally, to the Native Plant Demonstration Garden in Staten Island's Greenbelt Park System. For me, getting to the Greenbelt is a journey comprised of the F train to the R train, the R to South Ferry, pick up the Staten Island Ferry, at St. George, take the S62 bus to Richmond Ave., and then transfer to the S44. Take this to Travis and, finally, I am there. I got to the ferry at 10:45 am, took the 11am ferry, arriving at St. George at 11:25am, just in time to pick up the S62 at 11:30am. The bus trip took 45 minutes from the ferry terminal.

S62 via Victory Blvd., St. George Terminal

S44 at Richmond Ave. and Victory Blvd.

What you see when you get of at Travis stop (Draper Pl.)

All said, it was really no big deal. I was surprised at how many tourists were riding the ferry back and forth. One told me it was because it was free. I assume it is also for the view of the Statue of Liberty (everyone was on the west side of the ferry). So the bus was empty at the terminal and I scoped out the neighborhoods of Victory Blvd. while making my way to the garden.

So it was with enormous disappointment that I arrived at the Native Plant Demonstration Garden only to find it poorly marked and apparently closed.

CLOSED! I travel all this way on a sunny summer weekend and the Native Plant Demonstration Garden is CLOSED! With no explanation! NO NOTHIN. Finally I find this sign on a house that appears to be a part of the park.

Can you read the handwritten closed sign? Apparently this is the entrance, locked gate says it all.

Frustrated, I walk down Travis about 100 feet or so and I see the William T. Davis Wildlife Refuge Parks sign. But I think it looks a little seedy (please allow me this) as there is an SUV parked in the drive and a man loitering about. Makes me think this is not the place to be, maybe he's got a meeting or something.

Poorly maintained entrance to the W.T. Davis Wildlife Refuge. Creepy guy loitering.

So, I am annoyed that I traveled so far but had little to show for it. Some thoughts, then for NYC Parks:

I feel as if these two Staten Island NYC Parks locations have the aura of an afterthought. They do not feel tied in to the infrastructure of the city. A significant entrance that welcomes visitors would help. Why not tie the W.T. Davis Wildlife Refuge to the Native Plant Demonstration Garden so NYers do not have to walk down a side street and enter the creepy entrance. Is the wildlife of NYC not connected deeply to its native plants? I will add that NYC Parks, if it wants to encourage visitors to the Native Plant Demonstration Garden, might consider opening on weekends in summer. A NYer automatically figures all NYC Parks to be public and open on weekends in summer. Come on! Especially, especially, if Parks wants to encourage visitors from all boroughs to learn about and plant NYC natives.

I offer you their press release:
Visitors to the new Demonstration Garden encounter 275 different species of native plants, including black-eyed Susan, bee-balm, native azaleas, and goldenrod, arranged in four different theme gardens and two greenhouses. Each garden features native plants in a different simulated native environment. A cottage garden presents foliage around a house, a butterfly garden attracts seasonal insect visitors, a vegetable garden is filled with green and edible treats, and a colonial garden displays an assortment of plants that might have looked familiar to early American settlers. Two new gardens - a meadow garden and a streamside garden - will be constructed soon. These gardens give visitors an opportunity to learn about the benefits associated with these plants, and how to best cultivate and nurture this native foliage in their own home and community gardens.

SOUNDS NICE!

Is Our Skin Like a Garden?

I received a very unusual email recently. An edited transcript is below:

Hello,

I am a consultant working on a project on behalf of Colgate Corporation. We are looking for an expert who can give a brief and informal talk to a small group of senior-level executives from Colgate Corporation on the topic of plant and vegetative life as it relates to the health of the world.

The following is a brief explanation of our project: I am coordinating a one-day brainstorming session for a group of Colgate Corporation executives. The theme of the session is "outside in" perspectives on innovation and we are exploring six macro trends that are currently influencing our world, one of which is the leveraging of the science of nature. We are particularly interested in the human skin, and in how plants' relationship to the earth may mimic/serve as a metaphor for understanding the importance of skin to the overall health of the body. To that end, we would like someone speak to our group of 4-6 executives on this topic for about 45 minutes, with time for Q&A afterward.

We are located in midtown, but would ideally like to travel to another nearby location ( Plant nursery/garden/park) that would add value to the topic , and conduct the talk there. I am very appreciative of any help you can offer me, or any other resources or avenues you might suggest I try.

Thanks very much.

Best,
Joanna
Creative Specialist | Arbor Strategy Group


My Reply:

Dear Joanna,

Well this is an unusual request. I believe you are located in Chicago, while I am in New York. But a few thoughts:

The most important thing to the garden is its soil. Without soil health, you lack garden health. In this sense, I suppose you could locate metaphor for skin health equaling body health. But we are more than the sum of our well-functioning organs. Skin acts up when our minds act up. Many skin problems are sourced in psychological dis-ease.

My sense of it is that our relationship to nature has become pathological. I would hope that to explore this is not to seek marketing and product strategies. These products and strategies emphasize and exploit our pathology. We have not come up with a cosmological order that compels us to feel at ease with our natural being, our natural beginning. The Epic of Gilgamesh or even the Expulsion from the Garden tells this story, however distorted by literal assessment of these narratives.

When we garden, I believe we yearn for that primary activity that connects us to the earth, that genetic foundation that compels us to scour for food in the soil and shrubs. But remember, the garden is artifice, a re-creation of that former life when our pathologies were scarce.

The earth is more than the sum of soil and plants. However, if I must, I would suppose that the soil is the skin, the plants the biological activity on our skin. Fungi, parasites, bacteria, etc. exist in the soil and on the skin. The air and moisture, the sun light all affecting the garden and the soil, affecting the life on our skin and our body. Some people use products to control the weeds and pests. Some people have wild gardens and some people have lifeless lawns. So what if our skin grows a garden?

Tell me what Colgate has to say about the garden of our skin. Should it be wild? Should it be a lawn? Should it be paved over with concrete? How do we know the benefits or negatives of something we cannot fully understand?

I hope you do not mind, but I will post this to my blog. Good luck. Any questions, send me an email at nycgarden@gmail.com

Blossom End Rot

Unfortunately, my tomato experiment is not without its troubles. I expected a certain amount of it, but mainly too little sunlight after July and the possibility of drought. I've grown tomatoes successfully before, but never in pots. And I was away for two weeks and worried about the consequences of absentee high-maintenance gardening.

Fortunately, NYC had several thunderstorms while I was away, and it has been that kind of summer- weekly thunderstorm rains. My tomato plants had been watered by the heavy rains from these storms, but while I was away- the plants grew enormously! The leaves shed most of the water that fell on them. Normally this wouldn't be anything to think about, but since my tomatoes are in planter boxes, the surface area of soil is quite small compared to the leaves. So the planters received little of the rain.

Although they had grown enormously while I was away, the tomatoes didn't receive nearly as much water as they had been getting before. To mitigate this, the plants sent fine roots through the planter box bottom to tap the water in the soil beneath. Despite this, my Brandywine tomato plant succumbed to blossom end rot. I've grown tomatoes that have suffered this before and its always such a disappointment when you first see those dark spots under your tomatoes.

Blossom end rot is a symptom of a calcium deficiency in the plant brought on by low water uptake or a calcium deficiency in the soil. In my case, I believe it was brought on by the lack of watering while I was away. My potting soil is mainly seafood compost, rich in calcium (but then maybe salts too, which could limit calcium uptake), so I 90% ruled that out.

These are two Brandywine tomatoes picked because they succumbed to blossom end rot. As you can see, the tomatoes look fine on top.

This photo shows the same tomatoes, but flipped over. The blossom end, has been rotting, turning black in the process. The tomatoes that succumb to this often prematurely ripen.


I threw these tomatoes into the compost heap. Immediately I began watering more thoroughly. I also added some complete organic fertilizer that has calcium (although I still don't believe its a deficiency of fertility in the soil). Finally, I added a home-made slow release watering system made from a 1.5 liter soda bottle. After I filled it with water, I cut a pinhole in the cap and on the bottom. Then I turned it upside down and inserted it in the soil of the tomato planter.

The water lasts about 2 to 3 days. If I continue to get new blossom end rot, then I will know that it is a soil calcium problem, not a water issue. So far, the few tomatoes on the plant have not succumbed. A few weeks will tell.

Garden Guard

My garden this year is so full with plants that it has become a good home to many creatures. I think the insects really like the dense planting, providing food and cover. At times I feel as if they are guarding the place. While the garden looks a little bedraggled in August, it is the best time to scope them out.

I took these photos of some in the garden the other day. The only one I missed was the giant green grasshopper. I have many carpenter bees, a few praying mantis, and it has been a good year for dragon flies.

Today, when I entered the vegetable garden to pick some basil, I noticed a dragon fly fluttering up and down, up and down. After I climbed out (over the fence), I stared at it while it rested on the dead stem of a day lily. I decided to point at it, real close to its head. When I got near, it darted right for my head and fluttered its wings on it. Instinctively, I swatted. It landed back on its post and stared me down. I thought, okay, I'll let you be.

praying mantis (cockroach family!)

some kind of huge fly

I did have a web spider set up shop for a few days in the vegetable patch, but I think the carpenter bees continually flying holes through its web sent it packing.

Growth Happens

I was away for two weeks, then bogged down in work for another week and a half. On June 29th, this is how the vegetable garden experiment looked:

Bush beans, some carrots, three cucumbers, 5 tomatoes, basil, cilantro, and parsley.

Before I left for Minnesota on July 7th, the garden looked not much different:


Now, when I got back from Minnesota, on July 26th, the vegetable experiment looked like this:

Myself added for scale

Insane growth while we were away.

URBAN HIKER

When I was a kid we would get a large, fold-out Brookhaven township map in our area phonebook. One summer I highlighted all the roads I traveled on already. Then, I proceeded to plan bike rides to points of interest I found on the map. Once I made those trips, I'd highlight the route. Acknowledging to no one other than myself how well-traveled I had become!

In some sense, I am still doing this, albeit much slower and over a bigger area. I'm no excellent hiker and certainly not in the best shape. But I like discovery, seeing new places, and hiking as exercise. I recently logged on to the NYNJ Trail Conference. They sell many NYC area maps (on waterproof tyvek!) and I've gotten some of those too. The Long Island Greenbelt Trail Conference sells maps (paper, unfortunately) to many of Long Island's major trails.

Below is a list of the hikes I have walked recently. If you click, you'll find descriptions of my experiences of the trails, the park, or whatever it is that captures my interest. 

Weir Farm (Metro North to Branchville, CT or by car) MAP

Avalon (Long Island RR to Stony Brook or by car) MAP

Sam's Point (Bus to New Paltz or Ellenville, then taxi, or by car) MAP

Greenbelt Nature Center (Subway to SI Ferry, then Bus or by car) MAP

Forest Park (walk, F, E, J, Z subway, bus, or car) MAP

Muttontown Preserve (LIRR to Syosset, NY or by car)MAP
Nissequogue River (LIRR to Smithtown, NY or by car)MAP

Fort Tilden (A train, Bus, Walk, Bike, Ferry or by car)MAP

Camp Hero (Long Island RR to Montauk or by car)MAP

Trellis or Else

First, my confession. I trellised too late. Yes, I had a plan, a good plan, for trellising my tomatoes. But I had no time to get to it and boom, the tomatoes were large and trellising more difficult. Trellis early, and spare yourself the broken limbs of those rapidly growing vines.

I had a good plan- a trellis method I had used when tomatoes were planted in rows in the earth. Do it early and it works, do it late and all you do is curse.

The Plan:

1. Take 6-foot long, 1 x 2 inch wooden stakes and pound them into the ground, evenly spaced and two for every plant.
2. Then roll out 2 x 2 inch poly mesh, cutting it to the length of the row.
3. Slide the mesh over the stakes, keeping it level along the way.
   
4. When you reach two feet above the ground, staple the mesh to the stakes.
5. Do this every 12 to 16 inches above that first layer of mesh. The quantity of layers depends on how tall you expect your tomatoes to grow.
6. Let the tomato grow through the mesh, weaving vines through as needed.
   

This is how it looks on my wooden planter:

I needed four per plant for this tomato because I am growing it in a pot.

Now my other tomatoes were too large to use this method. So my emergency method happens to look like this:

I used 6-foot long bamboo stakes from the local nursery attached at the four corners of the wooden planter. I braced the stakes with common pipe brackets bought at my local hardware store for 15 cents each. Then I tied twine to each of the stakes, going all around and repeating this up the stake.
The braced bamboo stake looks like this:

I also used the poly mesh to keep squirrels from digging holes in my cilantro and parsley. Little boogers like to dig.

Not So Much Party Lights as Lights You Might Turn On at a Party

Recently I attended a party for my high school art teacher. I made her this string of lights. Over the years I have seen her collect many skeletons, more dia del muerte than medical mock-up. She is also a fan of sunflowers. Therefore, sunflower and skull lamps, cut into B/C-grade cedar shakes bought at Lowes and strung with a line of 10 lamps bought at Lighting Plus on Broadway at Great Jones.

 

Black Ants Feeling the Lovage

On our way down from the Adirondacks, we stopped at the Berkshire Botanical Garden to check on Betsy's sculpture. I checked out the herb garden and saw this. Now that's Lovage (no aphids in there).

Too Busy Again

Too much work and social events to post. I have a backlog of things to write. How the vegetables are doing, the perennials, the rain, trellising, and ....

Adirondack Two-Step

Last weekend I traveled to Schroon Lake in the Adirondacks. Friends invited us to stay for a couple of days in their sister's cabin on the lake. While there, my friend Mark and I were given this puzzle: 15 two by six by eights and a slope -make a staircase that senior citizens can navigate from the driveway to the cabin. Use no additional materials (except nails). Here are the results, however unfinished.

looking up


looking down

angle shot

I did express concern about water flow (amongst other problems) down the hillside. Duly noted by its owner. Update & Note: Last weekend a torrential downpour emptied the soil from the staircase. Way too many plants and topsoil are turned over to build these steep-sloped hillside get-aways. Summer thunderstorms wash that loose soil right into the lake.

Berkshire Botanical Garden

About two weeks ago I spent a couple of days at the Berkshire Botanical Garden near Stockbridge, Mass. I never would have known about the place if it was not for the exhibition my wife was part of at the garden. The exhibit, called Cultivate, was curated in coordination with the exhibit titled Badlands at Mass MoCA.

This is the piece she made for the show, titled Hope and Weather. Its a solar powered water system that powers the butterfly's wings that change the world's weather. If you want to know more about her work, check out her site BetsyAlwin.com


The garden is a small, comfortable space with herb, perennial, and rose gardens. The most charming space was the water garden, subtly tucked away on the bottom of a gentle slope. The pond had a certain magic about it. Planted just right, looking cultivated, yet quite natural. It had an island in its center with a large boulder and a hemlock growing on it. I stayed at the home of one of the trustees of the garden and he told me they had just received a grant to enlarge the pond. Well I made sure to let him know I thought it was excellent just the way it is.

yellow iris

ferns and lily pads

view to the south

This view was gorgeous

I'd see to a way to spend that money building their perennial collection. I was amazed to see some weedy(invasive?) perennials in their beds, including Petasites japonica 'Giganthea' (Japanese Butterbur) and Macleaya cordata (Plume Poppy). I worked hard to eradicate Plume Poppy from my garden, but sources seem to only call it weedy. It must be easier to control in colder climates-such as the Berkshires or where I got mine, central Maine!

Early Girl

This is Aster x frikartii 'Monch'. I bought it from White Flower Farm a few years ago. Its blooming in mid-June, earliest I've seen it bloom. In NYC, June seems to be the new July.

HEAT

This heat just wipes everything out. Except for the Yarrow, flowers fading so much faster with the heat on. A good rain seems to be in the making tonight. An extremely local thunderstorm in our neck of Brooklyn on Sunday helped keep the garden hydrated. I haven't put the air conditioner in the window yet. I am trying to bear it, like we always managed to before.

ID These Please

This is a Brooklyn yard. All those plants growing like crazy. Mugwort growing at the bottom, and if you look closely on the bottom right, the all-too common Brooklyn snail hanging out on some of last year's stems.



"Hi,

Here are photos of some of the weeds in my yard.
...it seemed the woody stems aren't the same plant as the mysterious vine. The two vines on the wall of my building are also pretty abundant. Would you happen to know what kinds of ivy they are?

Thanks for your help,
Lisa"

Lisa,

The wall vines were e-a-s-y once I saw them.

This is Virginia Creeper, Parthenocissus quinquefolia. This plant is native to the eastern U.S. and has nice red foliage in the autumn, though some consider it a weed. Pull it if you don't want it. What I like to do is selectively pull, always leaving some where it looks good and I can manage it(usually along a fence or wall). The "quinquefolia" in the name refers to the 5-leaflet leaf structure. In the photo, you can see it growing with the next plant below.


This is Boston Ivy, Parthenocissus tricuspidata, a common garden and landscape vine. However, Boston Ivy is not native as it originates from eastern Asia. As the first botanical name will tell you, it is related to Virgina Creeper. The second name refers to its 3-lobed leaves. As you can see in the first photo, Boston Ivy has shiny leaves and the Creeper, dull.


This plant I grew up with; it growing on our fence at the edge of the woods. I believe it to be Oriental Bittersweet, Celastrus orbiculatus. This plant is native to Eastern Asia and has naturalized over much of the eastern U.S. It can be aggressive, strangling other plants with its twining vine. It spreads by seed, so pull it up while it is flowering to avoid dropping more seeds.

When your yard is overgrown like this with woodland edge plants, its always a good idea to keep your eyes out for poison ivy, which often grows in similar conditions.

Gardens Gone Wild

Yes, its early. I simply must get used to this. I would say the garden is about three weeks early and some plants have been blooming for at least a couple of weeks now. So I present to you my garden porn:

The Drumstick, Allium sphaerocephalon, hasn't bloomed yet, but it's long slow movement towards blooming is as wonderful as the bloom itself. Love these.

Now you can see how densely planted (some simply say wild) the garden is this year. Within this square foot, we have two types of geranium, lily, two types of yarrow, a rose, and deep down in there you can see the sedum.

Yarrow, lily, geranium, and rose blooming.

Climbing rose "New Dawn," pink blooming dwarf spirea to the far, middle left, evening primrose and some yarrow in yellow. Phlox and Lily shooting up to the upper right, Tradescantia (spiderwort) to the bottom right, and Sedum in the bottom center, just beneath the recently clipped russian sage. Blooming, deep-purple lavender to the far lower left, Boston ivy climbing the wall, honeysuckle over the rose, and if you can believe it -a Clematis hiding in the rose.

And the money shot, New Dawn rose petals freshly fallen onto the blooming lavender.

Building Better Boxes

Now that I have been living with my easy wooden planters for two weeks I can say that some are better and some are simply functioning. All will survive the season, but the warping induced by the wet soil on one side of the wood, and sunny dryness on the opposite side of the wood is causing problems. Some woods handle this environment better.

I made boxes with four types of wood planking: Poplar, Pine, Redwood, and Cedar.

Here the Poplar planking is pulling away from the structural framing on the bottom of the box. Additional screws may solve this problem.

The Poplar is most prone to warping. In this photo, the top planks are pulling away because I planked 2 inches above the framing.

The Pine is hanging in there, showing a little, but expected, warping stress.

The Redwood and Cedar are both performing admirably as expected.

So if you want to make boxes that do not warp so readily, pick Redwood or Cedar. There are also some tropical hardwoods, like Ipe and Teak, that will hold up just as well.

As for structural improvements, heavier structural framing (2 X 3 instead of 2 x 2) and sinking more decking-type screws per plank may shore up these easy boxes without too much extra effort.

To get a better planter, you will need to spend much more time and/or money. Professionals would likely use exterior-grade plywood for the interior box and tongue and groove planking for the exterior fascia. Often, they will build in a ledge around the top rim of the planter to keep water from easily working its way between the plywood and fascia. Other decorative touches are often added. The wood will then be stained, painted, or sealed to protect their workmanship from environmental stresses.

Enough to make those 5-gallon pails seem all the rage.

Easy Wooden Planters

This is a very simple planter box. It consists of two "U" shaped framing units and horizontal planks to tie the whole structure together. Wood plank and planter sizes can vary, so take my measurements as a rough guide.

It all starts with some wood: scrap wood on the right, some bought pine on the left. In addition to the planks, you'll need some 2x2 pine or cedar (better) for the interior framing.

Of course, you'll need some tools. Tape Measure, pencil, drill, drill bits, chop saw or handsaw, and some 1-1/2 inch and 3 inch screws. A carpenter's square is useful too, but not necessary unless you're using a handsaw. If you have an air compressor and nail gun, you can forgo the drill and screws altogether.

__________________________________________________________

Four 2 x 2 x 14 inch posts for the interior framing. Measure and cut each at 14 inches long. It is important that your cuts are square (90 degrees to the edge of the wood) so that the posts sit squarely in your box.

Now take another piece of 2 x 2, measuring and marking it at 12 inches long. Cut. Repeat once.

These two twelve-inch 2 x 2 pieces will become the bottom framing. Drill two pilot holes, about 3/4-inch from each end and centered. Then sink one 3 inch screw halfway into each of those holes.

Afterward, line up two 14 inch posts in the fashion you see above. Lay this "U" on its side and drive two 3-inch screws through the bottom 2 x 2 and into the posts, making sure to keep the posts and bottom lined-up. One screw for each post.


You will do this twice, one "U" shaped frame for each side of the planter box. Now you are ready for the plank sides.


Take a plank, measure, mark, and cut it at 12-inches. The planks should fit exactly on the "U" shaped frame. My planks were about 3.5 inches wide, so that I needed four planks, laid side by side, to rise to the top of the 14 inch tall posts.


Here I have four planks fitting nicely on the frame and an additional four planks for the opposite frame.


Here you can see the edge of one of my planks. It has some holes, but none too big to interfere with its purpose. Drill a pilot hole (the small one near the edge) so that you don't split the plank when you drive a screw through it.


Here you can see all four planks lined up with all pilot holes drilled.


This image shows all the 1-1/2 inch screws driven through the planks and into the "U" shaped frame. Do this for the opposite side as well.

Both "U" shaped frames have been "planked." It is up to you to determine the ultimate size of your planter box. I decided that this box would have a rectilinear shape, 12 x 16 inches. Take the overlap of edges into consideration when determining your planter's dimensions.


I measure another 8 planks at 16 inches long and cut each. The interior dimension of this box will be 12 x 14-1/2 x 14 (L x W x H) inches.


After drilling pilot holes in each plank, you line up the edges of each and sink a 1-1/2 inch screw into each pilot hole. Do this for each of the eight planks and you should have a fairly substantial box.


Now you need a bottom to your planter box. This is the most complicated part of the entire planter box building project.


First, take a measurement of the bottom interior of the box. Make sure you are measuring across the bottom 2 x 2 framing as the bottom planks will rest on the ledge made by the 2 x 2's. I had different widths of scrap wood for the bottom, cutting all of them to length (14-1/2 inches). I put the bottom planks side by side, on the ledge, in the box. I then measured to make sure the needed remaining planks would fit. They did, so I cut the 2 x 2 post dimension (about 1-1/2 x 1-1/2 inches) out of the corners with my hand saw. I fit the cut planks in (you may have to tap it in) and then drilled drainage holes.


Here's how it looks from the top with the bottom planks in, but before I drilled drainage holes.


And here is the finished planter box. This is easiest, but scrappiest, box I could make. There are many ways to do it better in terms of fit and finish, but the basic building can be the same. An improvement on the box you see here would be to bring the posts all the way up to the top of the planks. You can see how my posts are a little short, disabling me from sinking a second screw in the upper row of planks. A second screw would help keep the wood from curling back when it gets wet. But I can accept this flaw. I was looking for functional, scrappy boxes made on the cheap (or mostly cheap). You can use cedar posts and planking for a longer-lasting planter, although avoid treated lumber (the greenish stuff) and ordinary plywood. You can also plank your boxes vertically, although you will need to change the "U" shaped frame on each side to a square 2 x 2 frame, positioned on the bottom and top.

Three finished planter boxes in poplar, redwood, and pine.

A few things to note if you are planting vegetables like tomatoes, peppers, eggplant and others:

• Make the interior dimension wide (say 12 x 12 or so), but more importantly -make it deep so that the roots have room to spread out. The deeper the better for tomatoes.

• I filled my box with pure compost. But I also added some moisture-absorbing potting mix to the soil so that the planter box retains moisture (soil separated from the ground can dry out rapidly).

• My mixture was roughly 60% compost, 40% potting mix.

• Check often so that your vegetables aren't stressed by drying out.