Redneck Watering Can and Garden Update

I live in a tiny apartment with no yard and I have a flourishing garden! How, you may ask? Window boxes! I've got 4 window boxes packed to the brim with different plants, one outside my kitchen window, one near my bedroom window, and two on the ledge of my shared porch.
You can read more about my window box gardening here, but I have some exciting updates to share.


No more brown thumb! I've conquered my past and officially have been able to grow 5 thriving okra plants, 10 thriving tomato plants and 6 thriving zucchini plants all from seed! Yes, the green beans and the peppers that I tried to grow never germinated, but I didn't give up! I just transplanted other plants into those containers and kept on doing my thing.
No veggies yet, but that's because the plants aren't yet big enough to start producing seeds.

My "ollas" don't work so well, I think... probably because of the dimensions both of the ollas and the containers, but I won't let a setback like that stop me. I just found another way to water the plants- with my special watering can that my husband rigged up for me.
You don't necessarily need a special watering can, but when you pour lots of water on your plants, you may end up harming them from the deluge. A slower sprinkling definitely works better and doesn't traumatize plants.

May I present:
The Redneck Watering Can.

This wonderful watering can gets filled with water from rinsing off dishes, then it gets poured onto the plants in little streams that aren't too strong to break delicate stems or flowers.

To make this watering can, my husband started off with a standard large container with a handle and cover. This was from bulk bought dish soap, but you can use any large jug, like old bulk soy sauce containers, or milk jugs, or anything really that holds lots of water and has a large cover.

He then poked a small phillips head screw driver into the cover many times to make a bunch of holes from which the water could stream out. This could also work with a nail, and if you heat up either the nail or the screw driver in a fire before poking the holes, the holes can be made quite easily!

You can't see it in the picture, but there are also a bunch of holes on top of the handle, because if there aren't holes for air to come in, the water won't come out in a steady stream.

So there you have it- the easy homemade watering can, upcycled from something that would have otherwise gone to take up space in a landfill. Totally free and works beautifully!

And here's the garden pictures:

My tomato plants, right outside the kitchen window. These seem to be getting the slowest start, but hopefully soon they'll get much bigger!

Some of my okra plants right outside my bedroom window. The one on the left is a little small because an unnamed person did something to stunt its growth, but its recovering nicely!

Here are my other okra plants, a lot bigger. (This is two sides of the same planting container. Its hard to take pictures of the whole thing at once because it is a side sliding window.)

Here are my zucchini plants on my porch. There were so many huge ones there that I had to transplant them into the container near it. That sorry looking one at the right there in the other container is the recovering zucchini plant. (They don't usually do well being transplanted...)

This is my other transplanted zucchini plant and it seems to be doing a little bit better. Its under the shade of my husband's bike- I hope that doesn't disrupt its growth too much...

Here's a closeup of the zucchini. So huge in so little time! Very soon they'll be big enough so I can start tying them to grow up the railing of my porch.

I try to water my plants twice a day because it is so hot here. When I wash the dishes, the water gets used after to water the plants. Therefore, my outlay on my window box garden has been very small.

Fortunately, the growing season is very long where I live, so even though I got a late start, I do think I'll manage to get a nice amount of veggies before it gets cold...

So, are any of you gardening? How are your gardens doing? What do you have growing now?