Wow, it has been way too long since I last updated about my little garden this year.
It has been a bit of a slow start this year due to the rather irregular weather with sandstorms, fog, rain and whatnot. Usually, the warm weather is starting in full force at this point causing my tomatoes, especially to go wild, but at the moment they are just starting to produce.
So, here are some pics – I’m just going to post the whole album this time since it has been so long since I last posted. π
Just thought I’d give an update on my starts. The pics are from two weeks ago and I need to take new ones, but have to replant some seedlings first. Maybe next weekend…. In the meantime:
Yes, that’s right, it’s that time of year again – when the weather starts to break from the intolerable heat and people come out of summer hibernation. It’s also a great time to plant seeds to get them germinating for harvest in a couple of months when the weather is cool, but glorious!
Now that I’m starting to actually be able to enjoy my weekends and relax a bit, I decided it was time to get my little garden going again. I decided to go full out this year and attempt to plant all the variety of seeds that I had bought a couple of years ago in Oregon. So, this year, I’m hoping to get tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, celery, onions, carrots, beans, peas and two varieties of zucchini going. I didn’t succeed with anything but the tomatoes and a few beans and peas last year, but I also didn’t really know what I was doing. So…keeping my fingers crossed that this year will prove to be more fruitful.
I also planted more herbs as I had such a great harvest of that last year and am still using the herbs that I dried or froze. π
Finally, I did manage to plant flowers – my favorite, pansies – this time. So, we’ll see how those get on.
In the meantime, I’m hoping today is also the start of the nice weather so that I can enjoy our balcony again and watch those lovely little green sprouts grow!
It’s been a while since I last updated on my container gardening adventure. The tomatoes seem to be the best survivors in this weather and my gardening style. There are some carrots, but nothing really worth talking about. I attempted to revive some zucchini plants, but they seem to be stubborn about wanting to bear anything useful.
So, with my watering twice a day now and attempts at keeping up with pruning away dead branches, the tomatoes are growing. There are some strange white bugs that have come to love my plants, but I don’t know how to get rid of them without chemicals…. Also, the herbs are doing well.
Here are some of the latest plant pictures:
The pics I took of the last great harvest were lost somehow… π
Not sure what I’ll do with the plants this summer, but it’s been a fun project in any case. I might just start over in the fall…
-T
My little garden has been growing!
It seems that the tomatoes thrive the most, followed by the herbs – especially the basil, though today I cut quite a bit of parsley. My carrots have somehow gotten the gist of growing and the leaves are growing, though I’m not sure how the carrot part is doing, but we’ll see how they go.
The weather has been heating up around here, so I hope that I can keep up with the watering. Mostly, I gotta find someone to water during spring break…hm…. π
My little balcony garden is starting to show signs of fruition. Yippee!
The past couple of weeks have been cooler and quite windy, so the poor plants have had a bit of a rough go. However, it should make them stronger, right? I’m hoping they keep on going and as the weather starts to warm back up, we should be seeing more flowers turning to veggies!
I did harvest a bunch of basil last weekend, but I will save that for another post! π
It’s been a rather long while since I’ve updated on my balcony garden.
Things are coming right along, I think.
The tomato plants are starting to flower. My beans are producing baby beans and also flowering. The herbs are growing like crazy and all the other plants are going strong. My only disappointment are the carrots…I think I shall have to start over with them, but all in all, my little garden grows! π
After just one week of planting seeds, the seedlings for almost all of them have gone up like crazy. I already need to transplant some of them before they fall over!
The rest of the plants have also been doing quite well in this cooler, but still warm and comfortable weather. π
It’s been a couple of months since I last posted about my container gardening. So, here’s an update.
I transplanted most of the seedlings and that has been going pretty well. Of 8 tomato plants, 6 have survived so far. About three of them are really growing well (pic will come later). Here are pics of them after a week of transplant –
The carrots are questionable as to whether or not they will take as it was a bit of a learning curve with those. I’m hoping that with some TLC, they will eventually take hold.
I transplanted some basil plants I bought from the store and they are looking a bit on the droopy side. I imagine they need more water and yesterday I moved half to another pot, so we’ll see if that helps.
The last two pots are of mixed herbs and they seem to be going strong.
All-in-all, I’m pretty happy with the progress of my little garden considering that it’s all been from seeds.
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Yesterday, I planted a whole new set of seeds for zucchini, green beans, snow peas, cucumbers, lavender, sage and celery. Once they pop up with some greenery, I’ll post pics. It’s a long labor of love, but I know once I see some veggies coming, I’ll be giddy!
We tend to not buy a lot of vegetables and then when we do they go bad from sitting out too long or neglect of use. One reason is price, cheap vegetables tend to poor quality and I hate to pay a ton for good ones. Thus, I thought it would be great to 1) have some fresh home-grown ones and 2) force us to use them up as they grow!
My childhood friend is a Master Gardener and so I asked her advice about possible growing a garden in containers on our new balcony. I thought maybe it would add some much needed greenery and also be easy enough for lil’ ol’ me to manage. She has given me a few tips and so I have begun from the beginning.
A couple of weeks ago, I planted just a few seeds for carrots, tomatoes, herb mix and rosemary.
Here’s what they looked like after a week –
Carrots – one week after planting seeds05-Sep-2011 21:45, NIKON COOLPIX S51, 3.3, 6.3mm, 0.033 sec, ISO 100
Tomatoes – one week after planting seeds05-Sep-2011 21:45, NIKON COOLPIX S51, 3.3, 6.3mm, 0.033 sec, ISO 100
Herbs – one week after planting seeds05-Sep-2011 21:45, NIKON COOLPIX S51, 3.3, 6.3mm, 0.033 sec, ISO 100
Rosemary – one week after planting seeds :*(05-Sep-2011 21:47, NIKON COOLPIX S51, 3.3, 6.3mm, 0.033 sec, ISO 100
I realized that I needed to thin the tomatoes and carrots out before I buy some bigger pots to transplant them in. So, I thinned the tomato plants –
Tomatoes – 2 weeks after seeding and thinned11-Sep-2011 10:17, NIKON COOLPIX S51, 3.3, 6.3mm, 0.033 sec, ISO 100
However, I’m hesitant to thin out the carrots too much as we want lots of carrots…So, I’m keeping my fingers crossed that I can transplant them as a large group and hope to not totally destroy the root system…. Here’s how the plants look as of last night –
Carrots – 2 weeks after seeding, but needs to be thinned11-Sep-2011 10:18, NIKON COOLPIX S51, 3.3, 6.3mm, 0.033 sec, ISO 100
Herbs – 2 weeks after seeding11-Sep-2011 10:18, NIKON COOLPIX S51, 3.3, 6.3mm, 0.033 sec, ISO 100
Rosemary – 2 weeks after seeding – finally! π11-Sep-2011 10:18, NIKON COOLPIX S51, 3.3, 6.3mm, 0.033 sec, ISO 100
This weekend, I will try to get proper sized pots for them and see if I can transplant. If that works, then I will plant some new seeds for other vegetables!
Stay tuned….
