My Basil Tin Can Garden

Is there an herb or spice (or two) that just say summer to you? For me, that would be basil and dill. I love using both of those herbs fresh from the garden in my summer meals.

I grow basil in pots on our deck. It just seems to do better that way. In recent years I've planted two pots with several basil plants each. Since those pots will now be on my front porch this year, I had to come up with alternate planters.

The painted cans I used for a couple of herbs last year held up well. So I thought I'd expand on those and add 4 more painted cans.

As a support, a corral, and to keep the cans off of the deck surface (where they could leave a rust ring), I used 2 old fence pickets and 4 used bricks from our property.

It's been a cold and wet May this year, so I've delayed potting my basil seedlings out. Some of them suffered some damage in the waiting. I tried hardening them off on two occasions, only to have to bring them back inside full time until the weather warmed again. 

Although it was raining again today, I set out to pot the largest of the seedlings. I worked on the kitchen floor and made a huge mess, but oh well. You know when you're confident that you can do something neatly without laying some newspaper down on your work surface? That was me this morning. I'll be careful, she said. I'll be neat, she said. I don't need newspaper. Let's just say potting soil, a top-heavy and tippy watering can, and a clumsy gardener turns a clean kitchen floor into a muddy mess.

I filled 5 of the can-planters with 4 or 5 seedlings each. I have 2 more cans to plant and will do that when my next batch of seedlings are ready. After seeing the damage to the very earliest batch, I started another 9 cells of basil seeds under lights.

I will continue bringing the planted cans in over night until our weather improves. From the weather forecast, that looks like it may be until the end of the week.

I realize that tin can gardening does not suit a lot of personalities.  I'll tell you why it suits mine. It gives a second life to something most of us think has only one life. It's quirky, and I'm quirky. It's one of the cheapest types of planting pots available to me. And I like the parallel between this can once holding a manufactured food and this can as a container in which to grow more food. Anyway, that's just me.