Winter Wine Barrel

While not as safe from critters as planting in the greenhouse, planting in a wine barrel worked out pretty well for me this winter.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I learned three things while using the wine barrel for my winter garden. The first was a bit of a surprise. Despite my previous experiences, I discovered that I actually like radishes. Don’t get me wrong. I am not a fan of spicy radishes; but rather, at least to me, chopped up and stir-fried radishes are really good. Unlike in the heat of the greenhouse, the lettuce that grew in the wine barrel was very thick and dark. But also unlike the greenhouse, the squirrels bit through the barrel lettuce - so I didn’t get to enjoy much of that.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The last thing I learned from my winter garden was that I can actually grow carrots here in the Bay Area. Howbeit I am starting off with hybrid carrots, hopefully sometime in the future I can ease into a vigorous open-pollinated variety.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Overall, I'm grateful for the opportunity to garden in a wine barrel this last winter. Despite the occasional attacks from the squirrels, we managed to realize a bountiful harvest.

Winter in the Greenhouse.

After many years of fighting squirrels and slugs in the winter, I decided to try something a little different in the winter of 2022-2023. Specifically, I decided to try growing away from the main garden. My theory was that if I put the plants far from the squirrels, they would tend to bother them less. While this is generally true, it is especially true in the greenhouse, where the squirrels can’t get to my plants.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My greenhouse plants grew faster than those grown out of the greenhouse, but this came at a cost. Winter vegetables often perform better in cool weather. The lettuce was not as good, as dark or as thick and the carrots were not as sweet as when kissed by a frost. On the other hand, radishes are not as fussy. Unlike the other two vegetables in the greenhouse, the radishes I planted in the greenhouse performed just as well – if not better – than if planted outside.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The primary disadvantage of growing in the greenhouse was having to water more often. Because the greenhouse does not let water in, I needed to water the plants a lot more than I had to water my outdoor plants – which tended to remain well watered due to the rain and cool weather outside.

Turning Grape Harvest Bins into Cubic Planters

In 2022, as I was driving back from a local produce stand called Larry’s, I saw the large cubic yard grape harvest macro bins for sale. That gave me some ideas. After calling the phone number to find out the price and looking at the price online, I decided to buy some. Even if they didn’t work for planting, they would work great for the bulk organic planting mix I often buy.

 

 

 

 

The owner of the harvest bins was a very old Italian farmer by the name of Joe. He had been cultivating and living in Suisun Valley, Fairfield, California for well over half of the last century. In fact, the Larry of Larry’s produce had known Joe for much of his life and had learned a lot his agricultural skills from him. While Larry was now helping Joe out with some of his farming, Joe was no longer needing the harvest bins. Having measured the cubic bins, I was still not sure if one would fit in my van – but after wrestling the container up to the back of my 2004 Toyota Sienna, I determined that, with the back seats down, I could just barely slide the container in.

Over the course of a month or two I purchased three more harvest macro bins, making a total of four. Once the weather cooled down, I drilled out the holes in each of the bins for drainage. This was not only important for growing plants in, but really helped with draining out the water that accumulated in the bins during our wonderfully wet winter.

 

 

 

It turns out that the bins helped to solve a number of the previous concerns I had with my remote gardening model. For one, the bins last a really long time and are a perfect size for a small cucumber or melon crop. Given the cost of lumber and the fact that many wooden-sided gardens don’t always hold up, I perceived that I could get a lot of milage out of the grape harvest bins before they degraded. There was also the white color. It gets very warm in the summer and the light color really helps the roots to not get overheated. Above all, the bins were relatively light and required no assembly on my part. My amateur handyman skills and the need to possibly relocate the bins combined with the need to use my time effectively made these harvest bins the ideal solution.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So I began setting up the white bins (lets rename them cubic planters) out on different properties. I started with the property I had already grown two crops in from the previous year. This was done in a 1-yard macro tote of the same general size and shape and color as the cubic planters. I unloaded the tote the best I could in 5-gallon buckets, slid the tote aside, then laid down some weed fabric cut to size and secured it with landscape staples. The cubic planter was then slid into place and the soil from the tote was transferred into the planter. The soil was an organic soil mix that I had purchased from a local organic soil company.

 

 

 

 

This method was repeated with two other gardens. The first was a couple from the Solano Ag Club. They let me use an area of their yard that received good sun. Again, I laid the weed fabric and secured landscape staples prior to putting in soil. Then I was able to get a couple I knew from church to sponsor a cubic planter. They had allowed me to grow in some 5-gallon buckets the previous year and this year would be much easier with the plants being watered automatically.

 

 

 

 

The final bin was used after I was informed that the Dark Armenian cucumbers (or Tortarello Barese Scuro) that I was hoping would be grown by a contract farmer was not grown. As I had been waiting nearly a year for this variety, I decided to grow it out myself. So that is how I came to grow in “cubic planter” one-yard macro grape harvest bins.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Overall, I would have to say that the cubic planters have done wonderfully well this first year. I am so grateful that I was able to find this solution. They are easy to move from place to place and provide flexibility with planting locations while keeping my cucumber varieties isolated from each other.