"Early Girl ' tomato, 'Purple Ruffles' basil, garlic chives, and jalapeño chiles all have a spot in our large galvanized planter. (photo) Thomas J. Story
Sunset Magazine was a regular part of my reading diet in the early years of my life in Southern California. I always had a current copy of their Western Garden Book, the de facto bible of west coast horticulture.
Sunset is no longer, however, an independent publication. Like This Old House, Time Warner owns it. Like This Old House their horticultural content is sadly behind the times, witness this article titled Plant a one-pot vegetable garden.There is not one word about sub-irrigated planters (SIPs) when they would be an obvious choice for anyone with current knowledge of modern methods of vegetable production.
Instead of an EarthBox, Garden Patch Grow Box or Tomato Success Kit, Sunset's "test garden" staff chose a galvanized water trough. Some may consider this a trendy choice, but it is a dumb planter for this purpose.
Any sub-irrigated planter will out-produce a cattle trough planter, while saving water and time. It is no contest.
Incidentally, a site search produces zero hits on "self-watering", the commonly used but misleading term for sub-irrigation in the consumer market.
Apparently (and unbelievably), the Sunset "test garden" in water-short California has no SIPs in it. It would be most informative for them to take a trip to the Google garden and get a fresh taste of modernity and water conservation.
TimeWarner is a common thread between Sunset and This Old House. It is clear that they have editorial staffs that are behind the times and incompetent to catch articles like these.
That may, however, be only the symptom. The real cause of the problem is more likely the output of antiquated curricula of the land grant university agricultural and horticultural education programs.
via www.sunset.com
Plant a one-pot vegetable garden.
Not everyone has the room for a big edible garden. But even if you’re limited to a lone container, you can still enjoy a summer’s worth of homegrown produce—especially if you keep a few favorite dishes in mind while you’re planning.
Pick popular ingredients: When we tried this in Sunset’s test garden, we knew we’d want three summer standbys: pasta with tomatoes and basil, gazpacho, and Bloody Marys.
So we planted a galvanized water trough (purchased at a livestock feed store) with tomatoes, chile peppers, chives, and basil.