Welcome Apartment Therapy Readers!!

I've followed Apartment Therapy off and on for a while now, mostly for inspiration on how to redecorate my apartment =) Imagine my shock when I found a comment from a reader who said they found this blog through Apartment Therapy! At first I thought it must be a mistake, but here I am #10 on a top #10 NY Gardening Blogs list! Admittedly, they've chided me for not posting of late... Eek! Duly noted and repentant. I'm quite proud to be the only one listed in Manhattan, though =)
I haven't been on the roof in a while, but that's the plan this weekend. I'm preparing for disaster, though, as it's been quite hot and I haven't watered at all. We'll see what survives and what doesn't! I'll leave you with an update on my tomato seedlings, though. They've been growing happily on my window sill, but desperately need to be planted out! They're already developing flower buds.
Thanks for visiting! Please do come again!

Early Surprises, New Experiments

This is going to be a little out of order, but I couldn't really contain my excitement over the surprises I found on the roof today! The late afternoon light, was also delightful for pictures =) Blueberries laden with flowers:
Window boxes abloom with ground covers I stole from my mom last year!
Despite neglect and a fence falling on them, the Loch Ness Blackberries monster on.
Strawberries already getting bigger! I can't believe they're so early!
Lettuce I never planted! This garden just doesn't let me kill it =)
Back indoors, my tomato seedlings are growing on. Imagining sun-ripened juicy goodness, now...
My experiment of splitting the herbs and growing some in pots to be transplanted to the roof appears to be a success as far as everything surviving the split. Things are looking good!
The thyme is growing in wild little bushes, a little basil seed I thought had failed decided to sprout up after all! The afternoon sun makes everything in my apartment a little golden =)
A new experiment this year is the use of rooting hormone. I've always been curious about the stuff, and never really knew what form it would take. My friend at work and I were trading plant cuttings and she mentioned having some extra, so she gave me some in a little pharmacy bottle. Now it looks like I have illicit drugs...
Anyway, I think you just dip the ends of a cutting in the stuff and plant it. Above is a sprig of oregano and below, some rosemary.
I started some snow peas the other day and these might actually be a little rotten because I left them in water too long before planting them. I brought them up on the roof and used the soil inoculant (mycorrhizal fungi for proper nitrogen fixation in the pea roots. Peas are legumes!) again. We'll see if they grow!

Finally Sowing

Leaving my plants for 3 months means relying on nature to take care of them as best she can, and when indoors, relying on family. Guess who did a better job? Before I left, my thyme and rosemary were thriving indoors and I had a bumper crop of window basil. I came home to find them all crispy. Somehow, it seems to happen every year, whether my fault or my parents'. So, Friday, I headed to Union Square Green Market and picked up some herbs from the same seller I trust every year. 3 pots for $5, but I guess earlier in the season some types sell for a premium so this thyme was 2 pots for $5. I have lemon thyme to the left and silver thyme to the right. I split a small piece off of both plants in order to keep some inside. I kept the larger portions buried in small containers to make it easier to remove them when it's warm enough to plant out on the roof.
Here from left to right, I have italian oregano, rosemary, and spearmint (3 for $5). I did the same splitting thing to the mint. The oregano and rosemary will have to be propagated by cutting later. Usually, I'm growing basil as well, but I'm all out of seeds. I tried to save seed last year, but it appears that all of those seeds are duds. Maybe indoor basil doesn't pollinate itself very well, even though it loves to send up flowers.
And, finally, I sowed my tomatoes to the left, lettuce bottom right, and spinach top right. When I'm not growing my own salads, I get 1lb containers of baby spinach from whole foods and I realized they might be perfect for starting small seedlings. They seal completely, so I can leave them on the fire escape when they sprout, without fearing that the street exhaust will get all over them, though I'll have to remember to open them every day for some air exchange. I got the container for tomatoes from a package of kiwis my family bought from Costco. Perfectly, it has 6 separate pits for the different plants and plenty of headroom for early growth. I've grown 3 varieties, Black Krim (my favorite from last time), Bloody Butcher (because again I have no Stupice seeds) and Pearly Pink (an intriguing new variety from my tomato seed archive).
When I accumulate more containers, I'll start some arugula. Normally around this time of year, I also start my sugar ann snap peas, but I'm all out of seeds and if I were to wait any longer, they'd be too late. Instead, I do have several new varieties of beets I'll grow this year. More to come on those in a future post =)

Spring means back to the weirdest gardening there is

Before getting to the garden part, I thought I'd share just how ODD gardening on a Manhattan rooftop can truly be. I came out of my roof hatch to find 2 full pairs of one-piece booted coveralls, covered in mud, right by the hatch. As if there is a pool of red mud somewhere nearby my building? (definitely NOT). Is there some fishing stream I just never knew about? Perhaps they came from a portal to another dimension... my roof has a wormhole!!! Or maybe New Yorkers are just plain freaky.
There isn't a ton going on in the garden, but that's to be expected. The blueberries are covered in flowers, but with my blueberry luck, I won't get a single berry. I think the problem last year was poor pollination due to inadequate pollinators in early spring.
The window boxes have really come into their own, though it's hard to tell here. But, almost every inch of soil is grown over with something I planted on purpose! There are lots of low growing, creeping ground covers that should flower throughout the spring and summer. A lot of my lavendar plants didn't make it, but the 2 that did look strong and I'll try dividing them at some point.
Next to some creeping phlox, this little low-grower will soon send little 6" stalks into the air, topped with small pink flower balls.
The branch of juniper I chopped from my mom's plant and abused heartily before planting seems to have made it. There are a bunch of brown parts, but these are definitely new buds of growth.
More to come as the season goes on. I'm already behind schedules compared to the last time I planted tomatoes! Being a lawyer makes me a lousier gardener, but I'll keep trying.

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 =)