One big job never comes alone, there are always dozens of smaller jobs that need to be done at the same time as the big one. This situation followed me throughout the last week. While we were moving the soil, I had to do a bunch of other things. There was no point in storing all the soil and then planting later, so I decided to do the planting while we were working on the soil. So last Wednesday I decided, after I got too tired of moving soil, to plant the potatoes and transplant the brassicas.

I wasn’t planning on planting any potatoes this year. In fact, I haven’t planted any potatoes in the past 4 years, but last week I noticed that my potato box sprouted. The potatoes I bought for cooking were already too old to use, so I decided to plant them. Since I don’t have any room in the garden planned for a potato bed, I decided to use every single broken bucket to plant the potatoes. 

We have a bunch of old buckets at home, most of them are from the construction work, and some were used before to plant chili peppers. I decided to fill all of them with soil and pelleted manure and plant some potatoes. I’ve also used a couple of compost bags that I had at home. Just to see if I’ll get some potatoes this way.

Since the buckets are old and broken, I decided to place them at the garden entrance, where nobody can see them except me. Also, this part of the garden gets lots of shade, so I won’t have to water them all the time. Here the buckets will be protected from the wind and can be left here undisturbed all through the year. Hopefully, I’ll get some potatoes this way, if not there’s no damage. The potatoes were going on the compost anyway, and I didn’t buy any soil specifically for this purpose. 

After planting the potatoes I went to transplant the brassicas. I have some of the early sown brassicas that are already big enough for transplanting, and I decided to do a small experiment with them. I’ve been collecting plastic bottles the whole winter, and now I’ve decided to use them for brassica pots.

My hubby cut them for me and I’ve filled them with soil and planted my brassicas inside. I’ve planted mostly leafy brassicas like kale, collard, and Cima di Rapa. I’ve planted a couple of cabbages too, just to test this method, but since I’m not sure the plants will have enough soil to make heads, I’ve planted only a couple of seedlings. The leafy brassicas will be just fine in the plastic bottles. I can harvest the leaves as soon as they start growing bigger, and I will have no problem with watering or feeding these plants. Also, when the winter comes, I can store the crates with bottles closer to the house and I’ll have fresh kale right at my doorstep. Kale in the garden is, although health growing, a problem to reach, especially when we get a lot of rain and I can’t go to the garden.

If this method works, next year I will plant all my brassicas this way. If not, I will use the plastic bottles only for leafy brassicas.

I have more brassicas on the balcony that are waiting to be transplanted from joined containers to bigger pots, and also I will sow some more for late planting, just to be sure if this method doesn’t work in my yard, that I will still have some brassicas.

After finishing with planting I did some more soil moving and left the rest of the sowing and planting jobs for Thursday.