I just am not having much luck with the decktop planter. It's a tall thing that is designed to allow tomato plants to grow out the bottom of a shallow planter. The Black Crim I used in that particular experiment grew foliage, but only produced two or three tomatoes. Granted, I didn't plant the seeds until June that year, so we were already into the autumn cool-off before the tomatoes popped. But I am of the opinion that some types of tomato simply don't like the growing upside-down thing, and Crims are one of them.
I was able to grow some nice thyme in the topside area a couple of years ago. This year, the plan was for a basil garden--5 types of basil arranged according to size from small and bushy to tall. The taller plants may have looked a little odd in a 4-foot tall planter, but bugs seem to like basil and so I thought that having the plants well off the ground was a good thing.
One issue with the topside part is that the squirrels considered it their very own special burial plot. I tried planting lettuce seeds last fall, and I would check it to find that the squirrels had buried nuts and in the process dug up all the seeds. So for the basil garden, I thought I would cover the container with chicken wire until the plants were big enough to take care of themselves.
I planted the seeds. Weeks passed. Seeds sprouted, with the promise of purple, purple-green, and regular green basil. Then a week or so ago, I noticed that some of the sprouts seemed to have vanished. A closer look revealed that the stems were still there, but the leaves were gone. I thought maybe they had shriveled. There were still 4 types of basil left, so I figured I would have something at the end of all this.
Then those leaves started disappearing, too. Thursday, I checked to see how the damage had progressed, and spotted the culprit--a caterpillar, calmly munching on one of the sprouts. The chicken wire did keep out the squirrels, but it also kept out the birds, resulting in a Caterpillar Safety Zone complete with gourmet vittles. Of the 30-40 sprouts, maybe 1 or 2 are left that look decent.
I think I am going to remove the chicken wire and plant gerbera daisies or something unattractive to munchers. I bought some sweet basil plants that are already well along, and I will make do with those this year.
I also spotted a few leaves missing from two of my tomatoes. I should put the cages around them soon.
On the irritating side, they just ran another propaganda commercial courtesy of the manufacturers of high fructose corn syrup. Person who objectsto the stuff is portrayed as an uninformed idiot, while HFCS user is wise and reasoned. Of course, the things that are shown containing HFCS are things that are already expected to be sweet--fruit punch, popsicles. I'm thinking--show the white bread, the crackers, the "healthy" cereals. No. Stack the deck.
*blech*
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