The teepee planters are getting quite full and I thought you might enjoy seeing how much they have grown in just one month.
If you missed it the first time, I showed you how to build a sturdy bamboo tepee a few weeks ago. I’ve made a few myself when I was experimenting with growing things in pots, which I can attribute to Sarah Raven’s book and another book I read that I don’t think I’ve told you about yet.
The Cottage Garden is a book by Danish gardener Claus Dalby. Don’t be fooled by the word “cottage”, which does not mean small, but casual. The gardens described are not small, but they are informal, casual and enchanting.
I’ve grown in pots before, but this is the first time I’m experimenting with observing how things grow in them and how far I can push and prune them until they submit.
I have very low expectations of the possible enormous Supersweet 100 tomato plant growing in the smaller bamboo tepee. I expect it will be kidnapping everything that comes along within a month or so.
It is always difficult to imagine how big a plant will grow when you first plant it, it seems so small and the growth is so gradual.
Below you can see the growth over a number of weeks.
(2 weeks later) Photo taken on June 26th
Photo taken on July 11 – 1 month after the first photo. (the plant is the same, but now in a different location)
Now, a month after the first series of photos were taken, the SS100 looks magazine worthy, a beauty to behold and a real tomato plant that is behaving well.
It will quickly get out of hand, so I need to figure out how to handle the unmanageable. Now that the tomato has reached the top of the bamboo tepee and the branches are still flexible, I will guide them.
I can try to bend them straight down (using string to secure the leaders down) or I can bend them down and around so the leaders spiral down the bamboo.
Or I leave it and forget I ever started this experiment.
The other option would be to hang a string above the tomato teepee and twist the string up like I normally do with tomatoes. But then the teepee becomes a bit redundant so that’s not my favorite option.
OR I could build a larger teepee for it, like the one I built for the sweet peas, and they do very well.
Once again I have comparison photos, this time of the sweet peas.
June 11, 2024 
June 26, 2024
And now a look at the lathyrus vines as they looked today, July 11, 2024.
July 11, 2024 (1 month after the first photo)
The Sweet Peas in the galvanized pot, growing in a larger tepee, are doing impressively considering the late start they had. I kept them in their small pots for about a month longer than I should have (always a bad thing with deep root producing sweet peas) before planting them.
I didn’t have time. What are you going to do?
You persevere, plan and hope for the best.
The Beaujolais Sweet Peas are now producing flowers. You can see why I chose this variety to plant with the Merlot lettuce.
Beaujolais sweet pea 
Merlot lettuce
The Beaujolais lathyrus variety goes well with the Merlot lettuce variety that grew at the bottom of the rack.
About that lettuce. The lettuce has bolted. You know your lettuce is bolting when the stem starts to grow long and the leaves are no longer close together, but a few inches apart. Lettuce bolts when it gets too hot, and when lettuce bolts, the leaves become bitter.
That’s why we’re all going to plant lettuce seeds next week to replace the early lettuce that has bolted.
Before that post hits your inbox, you’ll want to buy some lettuce seeds if you don’t have any. I grow Merlot (red lettuce), Bauer (an expensive hybrid seed, but I really like it), and Paonia head lettuce, which I always have a hard time getting started.
These are just the varieties I’ve found after years of growing, but there are a lot of really good lettuce varieties out there, so don’t feel obligated to grow the varieties I grow.
I pick the lettuce by pulling off the bottom leaves that have grown the longest. I find that having 8 lettuce plants gives me just enough loose leaves to eat lettuce every night, while still giving the plant time to generate new growth.
Get those lettuce seeds and prepare for another post on how to get the MOST out of the lettuce you grow.
All the lettuce has been removed and replaced with new, except for the head lettuce that grows at the base of the tomato. Head lettuce does not bolt as easily and takes longer to grow than leaf lettuce.
Thoughts on pots
I have to tell you that there is something to this pot growing. The dahlias I have planted in pots are twice as big, twice as healthy (almost no pest damage) and bloom earlier than the dahlias I have in the ground.
The tomatoes are looking good too and I have a whole pot of celery growing that is looking better and growing stronger than any I’ve ever grown.
So this weekend I am going to add another experiment to the mix and plant carrots in pots. My early garden planting of carrots has resulted in a few carrot sprouts, while the rest are just as grumpy as carrots usually are.
