Lessons Learned and Legumes Lost: Deck Planter Edition

Last year at this time, we had just moved after over twenty years in our old place, and one of my goals was to put in planters on our lovely new deck. With all of the hubbub, I was delayed in this endeavor until early July, and ended up planting in the hottest days of the summer while also not really knowing what I was doing. It was a grubby, sweaty, situation with a lot of do-overs, and considering my blunders, I was surprised that the flowers not only made it, but actually thrived and lasted well into September. This year, I was in a much better place to plan ahead, start early and learn from last year’s mistakes. I managed to get everything planted in one afternoon, and I felt much more at ease and confident.

Last year, I was enamored of this herb pot with multiple layers, designed so that when you water the top layer, the water filters all the way down through the lower layers of pots. I had the grand idea this would be my herb pot from which I would pluck fresh herbs to dry, but the drying part didn’t work out for various space-related reasons, the water didn’t filter down quite as advertised, and the pots didn’t get enough light sitting on the deck floor rather than elevated on the railing, so the herbs petered out fairly quickly and it was all a bit disappointing. This year I decided to plant the herbs in one of the railing pots, and so far, so good. We are going to pick fresh herbs straight out the pot instead of trying to dry them:

What I really liked last year was opening the deck shades to a bright burst of color, so I repeated that this year with these bad boys; I don’t know what they are called and I lost the little signs, but they are daisy-like and they proved themselves to be extremely hardy last year.

And of course because it’s me, purple is a requirement:

I’m a little worried about the pale purple bunch on the left; they don’t seem to be “taking” for some reason and may need to be replaced with something else.

Finally, I put in the classic marigolds. They are not my normal choice, but I love the rich, dark orange shade of these particular ones:

With the multi-layered pot, I planted some low-light flowers that seem to be doing okay so far:

Last year, it was a constant race to keep up on the watering, but this year, because I planted so much earlier, the air has been a lot more moist, and the roots are not sucking up every ounce of water the second it hits the soil. I’ve been able to keep the watering to roughly every other day, and with the lighter labor load, I’m actually considering buying a few more pots and really upping my deck garden game with some vegetables.

When breaking up the dried soil from last year’s pots, I was bemused to discovered no less than eight buried peanuts in shells. It seems we have a squirrel, or perhaps a family of squirrels, who stealthily made it up three floors of vertical walls to deposit them for safekeeping. I have never seen or heard a squirrel on our deck, so they must be doing this in the dark of night, and very quietly. I tossed the peanuts out only to realize afterwards they might come back looking for them at some point, and now I feel kind of bad. I hope the peanuts weren’t some squirrels entire meal plan for the winter. Next year, if I find more peanuts, I’ll just leave them there and hope the squirrels don’t rip up the flower roots trying to get at them. Hopefully they’re like me and can’t remember where they put anything.

--Kristen McHenry