Welcome new Burpee Home Gardens blogger Megan Mahaffey! She will be gardening with Burpee vegetables and herbs this season and sharing her story with you!

The box arrived on Earth Day, and as I broke the seal of tape, the smell of plants and soil wafted over me. It smelled of springtime.

If you’ve never smelled a tomato plant, you should. It’s a scent unique to the plant, I’ve never smelled anything else quite like it. It’s earthy, and rich, and makes my mouth begin to water in anticipation of fresh sauces, salsas, and slices.

I sorted through my collection to see what I had – two each of three varieties of tomato, two peppers, and a couple types of basil – fourteen plants in total.

Now, I’ll just tell it like it is. I live in an area where we don’t have dirt. Dirt, in my mind, is brown, and soft, and, well, things will grow in it. That’s not what I have. I have red clay, and lots of it. Currently, my number one crop is dandelions.

So, I needed an alternative. These plants are “container-garden” friendly, but I’d been considering something specific for a while. The “Wading Pool Garden” – using those hard plastic wading pools you get for your kids. Or dogs. My dogs have always loved those!

Some research would be required. Spacing. Root depth. Would one pool work, or was I going to need several? How do you set up said pool to plant in it?

An hour or so later, I had established that I should be able to grow all six tomatoes, four peppers and four basils in one six-foot diameter wading pool. This made this project highly cost-effective, in my mind. I’d priced large pots recently, and one wading pool was about the same price as one pot that could house one lonely tomato!

Now, if it will just quit raining so I can get started!