Hello Garden 2015

The thing about apartment gardening is when you are researching "apartment gardening" and come up with a million hits on "best vegetables to grow in pots", they never tell you the HOW part or the YES, BUT part. Pinterest will tell you you can grow a miniature Meyer Lemon tree in a pot in your kitchen year round! You get all excited at the prospect - but quickly realize your apartment doesn't have the south facing sunroom cloaked in sunshiney warmth that that Meyer Lemon tree needs to survive. Let's not even mention the dry, cold, drafting housing conditions of a Minnesota apartment winter. Needless to say, I wasn't duped by this Meyer Lemon business. There was one that got me last year though:

The raspberry bush. 

They tell you it can grow in a pot. True. It can stay alive and even grow some. But what they don't tell you is that raspberries are two year growers. The first year it grows the vines and the second year those vines become woody branches with the strength to support fruit. What this means for the apartment gardener that just spent $16 on one plant is two things:

1 - when you first buy that plant it will look like a cut back branch or two. It will look like that because that is precisely what it is. That stubby, thorny 6 inch wood shaft is THE ONLY branch that will support fruit that first summer. Which means a wicked yield of a mere handful of berries. 

2 - then you have this plant in this big pot that you need to over-winter. No one really talks about this part. Come fall 2014 I realized I had a crazy heavy pot and a temperature problem. Raspberry bushes need the temperature to get cold enough to force them into dormancy, but not so cold that it kills the plant. I couldn't bring it into my basement (too warm) and I couldn't leave it sitting out (too cold). I searched for advice long and hard on what to do to prep for winter. I didn't want this $16 plant that I only ate 4 berries from to die before I got a decent crop! I tossed around the ideas of putting in the detached garage or wrapping it in burlap and straw cover. Talking it over with my local garden store, they told me that a plant in a pot would surely die in our winters since the wind & cold will cut right through the container. In ground plants mostly survive the weather due to thermal mass of the earth. Our brains clicked at the same moment and we decided I should try burying the pot. Which is what I did.

As the snow has cleared I have been debating whether I'm looking at a dead plant or a dormant plant. After much uncertainty, I'm proud to announce - It worked! Today I unearthed my pot. And am happy to say I have the first green buds of life.

My summer garden has officially begun.