Hydroponics Update

A week later and my hydroponic plants have grown a little, but not incredibly.

Here's a close-up of some red lettuce and a swiss chard in the right corner.
Here's a close-up of a speckled lettuce. Maybe it's speckled trout lettuce, but I can't be sure because it came in a packet of mixed lettuces (Rocky Top Lettuce Mix from Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds).
I picked this red lettuce up out of the tray and there were long roots growing out of the bottom of the solo cup. I guess that's what I made those holes for.

New Experiments in the Garden

Today was a busy gardening day! Or at least, labor intensive, as I lugged a large bag of mulch, some bone meal and a bundle of bamboo sticks home from Saifee Hardware on 7th street. I have a push cart I can use for these things, but I didn't expect to get such a large bag of mulch. Unfortunately, when I got to the store I found they didn't have any smaller bags, so it was time to show my commitment to this roof garden =) I'll be sore tomorrow.

Here, you can see the snow peas I planted out on Thursday morning. The seedlings I had in the start tray didn't seem to grow any in the last week, possibly because the tray was dry and I couldn't tell. I'll have to watch more closely next time. You can also see the mulch and the bamboo sticks I brought home today. On the mulch, I'm finally taking my own advice! The bamboo will provide support for the peas as they grow taller. They send out twining tendrils that search for objects to climb.

Because I'm trying to grow more large plants and permanent plants in my pots, I've felt that growing leafy greens in my 5 gallon pots isn't the best use of space/soil. I've seen people grow leafy greens successfully in hydroponic setups. Specifically, the NY Sunworks Science Barge showed me that you can grow bok choi floating on tank full of tilapia fish. So, I decided to run a hydroponics experiment on my leafy greens. Those lettuce and spinach plants from last week, plus a canary yellow swiss chard that overwintered in a pot, were all transplanted into small peat pots of perlite in this (really ghetto) hydroponics setup. I've filled this pan with a mixture of water from my aquarium and from a bucket of compost that filled with water over the winter. The green line in the upper right is an air tube connected to a small aquarium air pump in my apartment. I ran the air tube up through a sky light and onto the roof. The peat pots of perlite sit in a piece of styrofoam that floats on top of the water. Perlite is generally recommended as a good hydroponics medium because it provides good moisture retention and air flow. Here's to hoping this experiment works =)
Thursday morning, I also planted this Anne Raspberry plant, which should yield sweet yellow raspberries. It's hardy to zone 3, which is better than the other two raspberry plants I had planted, which I believe are both now dead. We'll see if the Tulameen raspberry manages to come back, but it's looking pretty dead right now.
The blue potatoes I ordered arrived last week and have been sitting on my windowsill to sprout. In case you didn't know what a potato sprout looks like, here it is. I was pleasantly surprised to find that blue potatoes have dark blue sprouts, too! Not so with the white potatoes I have sprouting in the background, which are growing a normal green.
Today, I potted up the Stupice tomatoes, as well. They were a little spindly, but I buried them "up to their necks", as more roots will grow from the stem that has been buried. This will make for a stronger plant when these are ready to go outside. =) I think they're looking lovely.
Busy spring time in this Manhattan roof garden!

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 =)

Rainy days

It's been raining a LOT the past week, and is supposed to rain again for the next couple of days. I took the dry spell today to check out the garden and sow some seeds. Recently, I placed an on-line seed order with Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds. I replaced some staples I had run out of and got a few new varieties to try. Here's what came in the mail:

Rocky Top Lettuce Mix
Flamingo Pink Chard
Canary Yellow Chard
Golden Beet
Early Wonder Beet
Black Beauty Zucchini
Early Prolific Straightneck Squash (Yellow)
China Rose Radish (Free gift!)

Today, I managed to sow some more lettuce since what I'd sown earlier didn't germinate very well. That might have been because it was old seed, or the soil was too dry. That won't be a problem this time around! I also sowed some Golden Beets and Early Wonder Beets. I'm excited to see how they turn out, and I really do need the beets to be early. My goal at the moment is to have a friend over in about 5-6 weeks for a big roof garden salad! =)

Hopefully by then, this strawberry will be big, juicy, and red.
I am not sure when to expect these blackberries to be ripe, but this is the first open flower.
There are many many buds getting ready to open, as well.

Winter Garden Update: Back to July 18th

Yep, it's December 6th. Yep, it's been a while since I've posted. In fact I missed the whole second half of summer, prime growing and posting season! And yep, I should really be studying for finals instead of procrastinating by updating my out of season garden blog. But, here we are.
Here's a look back on the garden as it was on July 18th. This oriental lily was in full bloom. =)

My Yellow Squash plant was doing fantastically.
This Arapaho Blackberry was developing fruit, though I'm guessing next year I'll have to fertilize and water more (I know, I'm always saying that about everything).

This watermelon was looking small and yummy, and the Rainbow Chard was doing well.

The Bloody Butcher tomatoes were doing decently, though smaller than I expected. Again, need more fertilizer and water.

The Black Krim tomatoes were really getting some color, and clearly a different color from normal red tomatoes.

The Hillbilly tomatoes were sad though. The plant must have been suffering from nutrient deficiency and the fruit were suffering from blossom end rot. I thought the plant had gotten over it's blossom drop last week, but looks like things just changed in a not-much-better direction.

Tiny Home Grown Salad

Here are the makings of my tiny home grown salad. Sorry for the dark pics, it was late! First, beets! 3 wonderfully small beets! It took them just around 60 days to be of edible size, but I really neglected them, rarely watering. I didn't really think they'd make roots! But they did, and they were yummy!


Then tomato!! There's a ripe red Bloody Butcher in there...

Then Swiss Chard. I picked a baby plant to thin it out from the larger ones.
All 3 elements washed and prepared for salading!
Bright red water as my beets boil.

No picture of my finished tiny salad because I ate it too fast! But, here's a watermelon fruitling to make up for it:

New Drip Irrigation & Garden Update

Over the last few weeks, I got very busy with work and work related evening events, such that I needed very much to depend on my drip irrigation system for properly watering my plants. I had no time to go up to the roof and check on them. For over a very hot week, I dutifully filled the bucket in my apartment and pumped water up to the reservoir, twice a day. When I finally made it up to the roof, I was dismayed to find that my reservoir had developed a small crack and was leaking the water everywhere. My plants were sadly wilted.

I decided I needed a more reliable system. Such a system would require some investment and some unsightly tubing within my apartment, but I couldn't let my plants die! So, a week ago on June 22nd, my father helped me install a commercially designed "Toro Blue-Stripe Drip Irrigation System". A bright blue tube runs from under my kitchen sink, around my apartment, out of my window and up to the roof. From there, the drip irrigation tubes and emitters were installed over each pot. A battery powered valve allows timed watering at whatever frequency and duration I want. It works! And I don't have to water too much about watering anymore. Yay!!!

As a result, my plants are looking nicely. My Bloody Butcher tomatoes are ripening. In fact, I got my first ripe tomato last Sunday, when I installed the irrigation. But that tomato was a bit demented so I didn't eat it. Still, ripe tomatoes a full week earlier than last year!! This is improvement! I think it has less to do with the variety and more to do with the fact that I planted out strong seedlings earlier, and watered them well for the most part.
Unfortunately, all of my plants and especially the HillBilly are suffering from Blossom Drop. I had never heard of this phenomenon before, but I looked it up on GardenWeb and found that sometimes, tomato flowers will just shrivel up and fall off without ever developing fruit. How frustrating!!!! My Hillbilly has no fruit at all, despite many many flowers. This Black Krim only has 3 fruit, large ones, but just 3.

Here's a closeup of the Black Krim tomatoes. Not black yet!

My Arapaho blackberries have developed flowers at the tips of the canes! Yum!!!!! I guess I didn't expect this to happen so soon.

The watermelons are just starting to drape over their bucket ledges.
Here's a tiny Yellow Squash seedling that just sprouted.

Here also are my beets. Just 3, that have been growing along and neglected for a couple months.

Real rainbow chard that is actually of edible size! I'd say this is a first.
And here are my white stargazer lilies in full bloom. Not a great picture, but you can see they are living happily in the dip in the roof where rain or my neighbors' air conditioning condensation collects to keep them watered.

Pretty Things to Come in Ugly Garden

I can be a little out of my element when it comes to pretty things... But, here's my attempt. I transplanted my hyacinth and lily bulbs to the window boxes and have mail ordered several flowering perennials from Gurneys. Here's to hoping they'll keep on growing and their flower buds won't be chomped by the pigeons this year.
This is the state of the rest of the garden at the moment. Quite a mess. I went to the Bronx Compost Giveback last weekend and mixed up several new buckets to plant in. It's a challenge figuring out how I'll arrange and improve my irrigation system so that all my new pots can get enough water.

Not much is growing in the garden at the moment. My strawberries are just starting to put out new growth, and the flat of beet and chard babies i sowed is still sporting the tiniest of seedlings.

But, here are my leggy indoor tomato seedlings, which I will definitely be "burying up to their necks":

And a Sugar Ann Snap Pea I've been growing under a makeshift clotch outside:

Start of the Season

Went on the roof today to sow my pea, beet, chard, and new zealand spinach seeds. Looks like the thyme and gao choi are totally dead. Guess I'll have to buy my 3rd pot of thyme this spring... Gao choi has to come from home though. But here's a few pictures of what IS growing from last year.

My first bloom of the year: Hyacinths

Lilies poking out of the dirt.

Chives off to a good start.

Strawberries too!

Briteblue Blueberry I planted a couple weeks ago. This came mail order form Willis Orchards.