I was talking to @MatthewTPritt about container gardening, and I figured I'd shock the rest of you while I'm at it with a thread about unusual and inappropriate containers; or: "You don't need much to make something, lessons from România"

Here goes. 1/

I start seeds and root cuttings in plastic icecream/fruit containers, corn cans, and glass spice tubes.
For plastic or cans, holes in the bottom + another container with water beneath makes for happy plants. 2/

Here's a bread box rooting rosemary and sage (tray of water under it), and a small kitchen drawer of alpine succulents. The metal mesh thing with the vine is a pencil holder. 3/

This doghouse is where I got most of my zucchini. Popping the roof off and sealing the door was easy; the hard part was realizing it was in the wrong place *after* I filled it with dirt.
The zukes are almost over, and onion is going in right after to overwinter. 4/

These tomatoes are growing in a kitchen drawer. These others, in the cloth bag you'd normally store sleeping bags in. They're some of my favorite Romales experiments. 5/

Speaking of grow bags, this zuke is in a hefty cloth supermarket bag.
It produced a handful of fruit, but not as many as it could, so when you buy actual grow bags, buy them way bigger than you expect to need and fill them all the way up with good soil. 6/

The avocados are happy in a plastic tub of water, sitting atop plastic egg cartons with holes in the bottom of each egg space so the roots can get to the water beneath.

The Oregano, my greatest love, is in an old wash tub, rocking green on green. 7/

I think you're getting the point of just how... Huh, is there a word for this?... I am.
Mint and ginger in kitchen drawers, lettuce in a windowsill flower pot, basil in the back making good use of a yogurt container.
And you know what? It all works. 8/

So I guess what this pesto, these pickles, and this focaccia are trying to tell you is that we probably worry way too much.

Give things space and the basic requirements of life, and they'll be okay.

Sort of like us. /