Strawberry Tower

I've been ridiculously productive today. Aside from cleaning up a ton in my apartment, I also planted up this experimental strawberry tower. The spacing isn't really ideal, as the space around the edge of each pot might be too small... but the idea is that the strawberries will grow out of that space, sort of like a strawberry pot. Here's to hoping. I transplanted some of my existing strawberries into the top container.

In other news, I also added some arugula, spinach and lettuce seeds to the hydroponic setup. Hope they sprout and that none of the plants drown. As of today, they were still alive. Haha! Also, I think all of my seeds from the seed experiments have failed to sprout. More to get rid of, more space for new seeds? =D

November Clean up

I came back from a long trip abroad at the beginning of November and took the opportunity to clean up the garden on a particularly nice day. You can see, my flower boxes are over run with grass weeds. Before taking this picture, most of my pots were too, but luckily, these weeds were really easy to pull up. That black cement mixer in the distance holds all of the weeds removed.
And despite being untended for 3 months and unwatered for 2 months, I still found some things growing nicely. A couple patches of arugula:
Tiny lettuce seedlings that must have sprouted very recently, as the weather cooled down from summer.
A healthy little swiss chard:
And a somewhat dried up beet.
I ate them all (except maybe the beet), and put the garden to bed for the winter =)

Spring is a wonderful time!

Spring is a wonderful time because every plant holds hope and promise of the tastiness to come! Nothing has died yet from my failure to water, the pecking of pigeons, or the occasional insect pest. Instead, there are flowers, buds, and lush green leaves to enjoy =) This pretty white flower might just turn into a strawberry I can eat...These plants could be covered in big juicy blueberries!
Even this Lochness blackberry plant, which grew wildly long canes last year with nary a bud...could be heavy with sweet dark fruit for eating in yogurt, smoothies, cereal... Yum!Tiny arugula sprouts might just fill my salad bowl one day...Purple chive flowers might make some lovely pink vinegar... (We can just ignore the bug infestation you can see if you zoom in on this pic! =( Wah!)

Indoor Salad Greens

It may have snowed yesterday, but inside, it's toasty warm and things are still growing. Back in early November or late October (I'm not sure, because I was bad and too lazy to write it down here), I let everything in my window boxes die and replanted. I really only lost my rosemary, which I'll have to replace, and my orange mint, which I never really liked or used. I resowed Arugula (top) and the Rocky Top Lettuce mix (bottom) in these window boxes. I think they could due with a bit of fertilizer, but I'm so lazy about that. I'll probably eat the lettuce in a salad with a sprinkling of tiny arugula leaves, soon.And, I also resowed my basil, which seems to be growing healthily, if slowly. I am day dreaming of some winter pesto... =)

We're back to today, June 6th! Phew!

Good thing we didn't get stuck in the past. We might have run into our May selves and caused a rift in the space time continuum.
Today, almost 2 weeks later, things are changing in the garden! I'm almost done rigging up my extended watering system, so I've brought all my buckets down from the pink air duct. I bought more carpet to put under the buckets and protect the roof from dents. And I also bought thin plastic saucers to keep valuable water and nutrients from washing away in the rain. The garden is looking bigger now!

My Bloody Butcher tomato plant has its first fruitlings. They've already grown quite a bit, nearly bigger than the Stupice from last year, but I think they'll be slower ripening because of it.
All of my tomato plants have grown quite large, and quickly.
My raspberries and blackberries have all leafed out and are growing like weeds! I can't wait for fruit! By then, I better have bird netting...

I moved my flowers, lettuce, arugula, and spinach to a spot in the middle of the roof, where they'll get plenty of sun and rain. They couldn't stay on the pink thing anymore because all of my plants near the pink thing are going to start growing tall, and I wouldn't be able to reach or see the flowers and leafy veggies. But, the garden is beginning to feel like a contained little green space. Kind of nice =) I put up willow expanding fences on my neighbor's windows too, so they can't come out and leave trash everywhere.

Back to May 22nd!

Today, June 6th, I read a patent on "Time Warping" at work. So, I have decided to do some time warping of my own. Time travel happens on the blog when I am busy... Back to May 22nd in the garden!!!

Here's a tasty tasty strawberry! What a cute heart shape...
Here are lots of ripe peas that are also tasty tasty, even raw!

Here are my tomato plants, still growing steadily.
Here are my little containers of lettuce and arugula... I still haven't figured out why they turned purple...

And here is everything except the tomatoes in my harvest bowl! Yum!

More Peas Please!

My how things grow when you're away taking final exams. I have a pea! I'll have to wait until it gets fatter before I eat it though.

Looks like I'll have more to come too. The pea flowers are a pretty white to contrast with my purple chive flowers in the background. I thought about cutting the chive flowers to use in a salad or to color/flavor some vinegar, but every time I go on the roof they're so pretty amongst all the greenery that I leave them.

Looks like I'll have strawberries soon, as well. They're simply covering my strawberry plants and getting bigger.

One strawberry is even turning red! It's kinda small, but that's ok. It is also demented, like many of the strawberries, it seems. I'm learning =)

My tomato plants are big and bushy! But, you can tell that the Black Krim on the left is kinda messed up because it got squashed a couple weeks ago. Still, it's got tiny flower buds. The Bloody Butcher in the middle has a couple of open yellow flowers soon to be tomatoes. The the Hillbilly on the right has one big flower bud and a few tiny ones. It's supposed to give really large tomatoes. I hope they grow ok in the buckets. I had hoped that my tomatoes would ripen earlier this year than last, since I planted them out earlier. I'm not sure I'll be quite so lucky, because when I planted them they were smaller than when I planted the tomatoes last year. The result is that my tomato plants look really healthy and bigger this year, but didn't come to flower quite as soon. Here's a look back at a year ago tomorrow.

The Tulameen Raspberry in the far corner has just started to leaf out from it's roots. The Lock Ness Blackberry that was all white shoots and crimson tips last time has also put out lots of leaves and the Arapaho Blackberry is looking good, though not growing terribly fast. Of all 4 plants, it was the only potted plant and it's root system was pretty small. The Summit Raspberry has yet to show any growth, but I'm sure it'll be coming strong soon.
My lettuce, arugula, and spinach pots are growing along. Since when does Arugula turn brown? I'm surprised.

Blueberries, Raspberries, Blackberries Oh My!

A lot has happened in my garden lately, most notably the addition of 2 blueberry, 2 raspberry, and 2 blackberry plants!! Also, I've almost given up on growing anything in flats this year. It's only April, and things are dying from drought. Unless my New Zealand Spinach grows, I'm putting my flats away until next year. Anyway, here's a rundown, with pics.
Strange looking shoots from my Loch Ness Blackberry.
Pretty green leaves on my Arapaho Blackberry. The raspberries were just big sticks with roots, so they didn't really warrant their own picture. You can see each in the background, Tulameen and Summit.

My blueberry plants, Briteblue, Northsky, and Chippewa. Unfortunately, the birds have gotten to the Briteblue even before it made fruit! All it's leaves are eaten =( I hope it comes back...

The strawberries have tiny green berries now! I'm excited for when they turn red =)

The tomatoes have all been planted properly, and won't be moved for the remainder of the season. I hope they grow big and strong!

Girlish pinkish-purple flowers about to bloom on my chives! The flowers can be eaten in salads or used to color and flavor vinegar. They didn't have flowers last year.

Here's all the chives, count the buds!

Some short pots of lettuce (upper left), arugula (lower left), and spinach (lower right) I'm growing. Arugula seems much easier to grow than lettuce... I harvested the arugula and lettuce growing in my indoor window boxes. The arugula was SPICY!

Finally, an update on the flower boxes. I planted some lavendar, maiden pinks, and white creeping phlox among the lilies. Nothing yet between the hyacinths, but i'm hoping to add a sedum or something.

Summer '07 Wrapup, Spring '08 Prep

A busy lazy gardener in August, I let my garden go to ruins. Never got to taste any zucchini or squash. If I had been vigilant, I could probably have gotten 1-2 more months of tomatoes and vegetables. Oh well! At least I got to taste these... YUM!
Now it's time to prepare for this year. I started my Sugar Ann Snap Peas yesterday.



Today, I received an incredible array of tomato seeds from a generous tomato gardener on theGardenWeb Forum. I really only have space for 3 tomato varieties this year, so I'm trying Bloody Butcher (indeterminate), Black Krim (indeterminate), and Hillbilly (indeterminate, potato leaf).As of right now, I have 20 5-gallon buckets, and hope to have them all filled with good soil by planting time. Here's my plan for the year:

1-4 - Strawberries (Honeoye and Ozark's Beauty now mixed up and can't tell the difference) around and 1 Rainbow Chard plant growing in the middle. Planted 2007.
5 - Blueberry - Briteblue. Planted 03/05/2008.
6 - Blueberry (type TBD)
7 - Blueberry (type TBD)
8 - Raspberry - Tulameen
9 - Raspberry - Summit
10 - Blackberry - Arapaho
11 - Blackberry - Loch Ness
12 - Fig - Dessert King. Planted 03/05/2008.
13 - Tomato w/ Basil - Bloody Butcher. Seed started 03/23/2008.
14 - Tomato w/ Basil - Black Krim. Seed started 03/23/2008.
15 - Tomato w/ Basil - Hillbilly. Seed started 03/23/2008.
16-20 from March-May? - Sugar Ann Snap Peas. Seed started 03/22/2008.
May? - August:
16-18 - Sugar Baby Watermelon
19 - Yellow Squash - Regular hybridized variety.
20 - Zucchini - Regular hybridized variety.

I've determined that growing water greedy crops like strawberries or any kind of fruit in the window boxes or flat trays just won't work on my roof, where my watering system is still in dire need of perfection. So, I'll just try baby leafy greens in those this year. The same types as last year and a couple ones I didn't get to try:

New Zealand Spinach - Seed started 03/23/2008.
Bull's Blood Beets - Seed started 03/23/2008.
Rainbow Chard - Seed started 03/23/2008.
Rocky Top Lettuce Mix
Arugula
Bloomsdale Longstanding Spinach

Transplanting Seedlings

Because I hadn't been able to get on the roof regularly over the past couple weeks I had some trouble keeping seedlings alive due to lack of water. Since the last post where I planted seeds, a few of the marigolds and the basil that had been alive died. However, there were still several marigolds alive, and a few new ones had sprouted. Additionally, the 2 watermelon I planted and lots of cosmos have sprouted and look great from having been started under the sun. There are a couple small basil seedlings too, and a few of what I think are New Zealand Spinach. I'm not entirely sure though, and will wait to see what they turn into. Today, I dragged the rest of the compost up to the roof and filled 2 more 5 gallon buckets with approximately the same mixture as for the tomatoes, but with less peat moss because I ran out and without the crushed egg shells (though the worm compost has lots of egg shells in it). I planted 1 watermelon seedling in each bucket and placed a plastic bottle cloche over each. I hope that the cloche will protect them from the birds and retain heat, since watermelons flourish in hot weather.

I filled 2 of the "bulb pans" I got from Novosel with a mix of compost and leftover potting soil I had. I divided the Narcissus bulb CJ gave me back in January and planted a few in each pan (before I read online that you're not really supposed to divide these?). On top, I transplanted a few marigolds and 1 of the bigger cosmos into each pan.

I planted the Chinese Chives ("gao choi") that I got from home over the weekend in their own bulb pan. They look a bit droopy but they're strong and hardy plants, and I'm sure they'll recover soon enough.

Lastly, I filled 2 more bulb pans with pure compost and planted beet seeds in one and rainbow chard seeds in the other. These plants may have to be transplanted into their own 5 gallon buckets later, but right now I don't have enough dirt to plant them in. They were from the recent order I made with Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds from whom I got the following for $12.30 including shipping:

Bull's Blood Beets
Silverbeet (Rainbow Chard)
Rocky Top Lettuce Mix
Arugula
Sugar Ann Snap Peas
Bloomsdale Longstanding Spinach
Gaucho Melon (free gift with order!)

I'll probably be waiting to plant the rest of these seeds later in the year, perhaps when it starts getting cooler. I'll work on getting what I've got planted established until then.