Small container herb

I have 2 containers with herb in front of the house. I've actually been pretty bad at watering these containers, but yet again, the neglect has not hurt most of the plants. In one container, there is thyme, rosemary, and perilla (or shiso). I had totally forgotten that I had sowed perilla seeds since the first 2 weeks I didn't see any seedlings. But now, it has grown some beautiful leaves. I throw them in salads and it adds a wonderful fragrance.

Left rosemary, middle perilla, right thyme

Perilla with beautiful leaves

There were some pretty flowers on the mint plant. Overall, it looks like it is suffering from uneven watering. But mint is strong so it should survive.

Cute pink mint flowers

Mint needs a little TLC

Tomato, pepper, summer squash starts

The tomato, summer squash and pepper starts were screaming to be transplanted and fertilized. The ichiban eggplant seeds still did not germinate but I read somewhere that seeds saved from ichiban eggplants don't do well. So maybe it wasn't me. Whatever the reason, I bought a starter plant so I will have eggplants this year.

Supersweet 100, Cherokee purple, Pink Champion, summer squash, Chinese giant pepper starts

The rosemary flowered beautiful, but now the flowers have gone and the plant isn't doing so good. It is turning slightly yellow and it just looks brittle overall. I need to do some research to see if I should cut back some of the branches - perhaps to promote new growth.

Not so happy rosemary

On a completely different note, I have been obsessed with reading and watching videos about urban farming/urban homesteading. I'm really itching to have a backyard. For now I will continue to live vicariously through other people's blogs and videos. I found some great series of videos called "Grow" from Whole Foods youtube channel. I don't know about keeping livestock, but I love the idea of having a lush backyard with whole bunch of vegetables and fruits. I almost went out to get a blueberry plant, but I know, I just don't have space. Boo hoo!

seedling update, month 1

I feel that my seedlings are growing slow. I found a heating mat that was pretty cheap (I'm also still looking into getting the snake lights) so I've been using that for the last 3 days. But I'm enjoying watching the seedlings grow.

Spinach, lettuce, kale @ 1 month

Swiss chard (no true leaves yet), pak choi @ 1 month

Romaine lettuce red and green @ 1 month

Beets @ 1 month - sown and grown outside

Kale @ 1 month - sown and grown inside

Arugula @ 3 weeks, sown inside and also left outside on the balcony

Cute purple flowers on rosemary 

This weekend, there is a sale at home depot for gardening stuff and starter plants. I'm gonna have to go and check it out! I'll see what I get and start a second set of seeds this weekend too!

Harvest Monday - August 29, 2011

Fortunately, the hurricane was not so bad in charm city. The wind was quite strong, but not much damage near us. The balcony garden survived with little damage (just some slanted plants). I think the tomatoes are done though. The leaves are all getting brown and dry. I harvested the last of the tomatoes - many of them had split (probably because of the rain?). I plan to pull the plant this weekend and hopefully transfer chard, bok choy and chinese broccoli. Here is the harvest this past week.

Not so giant, Giant chinese peppers

The last tomato harvest, most likely - some sweet 100s and early girl 50s

Rosemary to dry

Handful of thyme

I am linking to Harvest Monday hosted by Daphne.  Its amazing to see the harvest from other's garden. It makes me excited to expand next year:)

GTTC - Jalapeno, zucchini salad & rosemary

I have no names for most of my recipes...Here is a stir fried jalapeno with salt/pepper and little soy sauce. This works only because the jalapeno is sweet and not spicy. When I was little, we used to have this dish made out of shishitou pepper (I'm not sure if there is an English name for this). Every once in a while we'd get a spicy one but that was part of the fun. It worked well with jalapeno too!

I made a little salad with the zucchini mixed in with dill and a simple vinaigrette. I only used a small sprig of dill but it gave a wonderful flavor.

Finally here is one of the few recipes I know using rosemary. It is so simple yet delicious. You pan fry the chicken with olive oil and just as the chicken is cooked you add some rosemary (let it cook for bit) then add balsamic vinegar. Let the vinegar evaporate a bit and that's it.

Chicken with rosemary sauce with beet greens and zucchini

I'm linking to Wendy's blog Greenish Thumb for garden to table challenge. Thank you for hosting the GTTC challenge!

Herbs in the garden

The hot weather is doing great things for the rosemary and german thyme. The plants are getting lush and look generally healthier than when they were growing inside. I would really love to learn more recipes using these herbs.

German thyme looking strong

Rosemary smelling wonderful!

The basil and oregano don't like the heat as much. The oregano is turning purple and bolting. I've pinched the flowers but I think I need to move it to a shadier area.

Both the purple and sweet basil leaves are narrowing. The plant itself is very strong (ie: the stems are hard) but these are also starting to bolt.

Purple basil turning green?

Sweet basil are curled up and the leaves are very hard

I will be moving them to a cooler area in front of the house. If you compare the basil plant on the balcony with the basil in the container with the tomato plant out front, you can definitely tell the difference. The leaves on the plant in the cooler spot is larger compared to the ones on the balcony. The balcony basil are considerably stiffer.

The balcony basil used to look like this before the heat wave

My only concern about moving the basil here are slugs. So far the slugs have not found their way up to the balcony but last year when I had the basil on the ground floor outside, they slugs feasted on them. EWWW. I will have to keep a close eye on them! The dill is also doing so much better now that it is out direct sunlight. I love dill and hope to use it more in my cooking.

So now I have a little bit of space on the balcony. I'll have to see if there are herbs that are particularly resistant to heat (any suggestions?). I'm wondering if the jade plants would do well in the heat. They are generally unhappy in the house and I saw some of neighbors with HUGE jade plants in front of their homes. I love these plants but succulent tend to die in my hands...

It is hotter than my thermometer!

The temperature according to weather.com is 96F. But my thermometer on the balcony says otherwise. It is so hot! In between movies, BBQ and going out to dinner I've been gardening (there is so much to do!). There is so much to do! I am determined to pot all the plants I started from seeds so my balcony is going to be more crowded than I originally planned. I just can't get myself to throw away them away.

It is unbearably hot on the balcony, but the sun is good for the herbs. I thought they were happy when I had them indoors, but I realized that they are much happier outside. Clearly the thyme and rosemary are much stronger and greener now. The rosemary are actually growing upward rather than scrawling around all over the place.

I made 2 self-watering pots using 18gallon containers. I was initially wanting to put 3 plants in each container but quickly realized it is too small for 4. I put 3 of the pepper plants (Chinese giant sweet pepper) in one and 2 tomatoes (either homestead or supersweet 100) in the other. I have 5 more tomato plants left so I plan to make 4 5-gallon self-watering container and put the last in a 4/5 gallon bucket from walmart. I used to water the plants using empty juice and soda bottles. Now this is not manageable so I invested in a hose making the watering process much quicker. An great upgrade for the balcony container garden!

The wonderful hose and 3 pepper plants in 18 gallon bucket

2 tomatoes in 18 gallon bucket

I also transplanted all the basil from the seaweed experiment and one tomato seedling and put in a pot up front with the petunias. I'm not sure if the tomato will fruit but it is worth a try. Hopefully the slugs will not get the basil!

Amazing herbs

I stuck some rosemary & english thyme cuttings in water and left it on the kitchen windowsill. I had forgotten about them for a while. Today, I went to go open the window and I saw this:

Rosemary roots

English thyme roots

They are so resilient! I should find a little pot for them. I love herbs! They just grow & grow and smell amazing!
     The dill that sowed last week are starting to pop out. The seeds smelled like dill but the seedlings do not. I actually forgot that about these too since I left them out on the ground floor next to my backup zucchini plants (which are doing still doing way better than the ones in the bigger pots). It seems that the plants do better when I'm not hovering over them like an overprotective parent!

Busy busy Easter Sunday

Yesterday, I went to buy tarp to protect my carpet from any water spilling from the containers. I walked passed the starter plants and couldn't stop myself from picking up a couple...3 to be exact. I bought early girl 50, mammoth jalapeno, and ichiban japanese eggplant. I found the eggplant first and after that there was no stopping me. I also purchased marigold since I read that they are a good companion plant for tomatoes. The weather forecast for today was thunderstorm all day - they were wrong! It was hot hot hot! On the balcony it reached 90 degrees. I had plans to go to a movie...but I decided to change my schedule and take the opportunity to do some gardening and go the move later in the day.

I put my seedlings outside to enjoy direct sunlight. The seedlings in the newspaper pots are tomatoes and peppers. Then I have basil in the two brown containers. Marigold replanted into a white container. In the top left corner I sowed some leftover mesclun seeds into a recycled salad container. In the green pot I have rosemary that I repotted. My goal was to grow vegetables, and I wasn't interested in flowers but I'm loving the marigold and the color it brings to the sea of green leaves. I need to think about getting more flowers to beautify my balcony.

It turns out that there are LOTS of bugs on the balcony. I saw ladybugs and several bees. I know these are good insects...but I don't really likes bugs. Actually, I hate them.  I will have to change my attitude quickly and make friends with them since I will probably be out on the balcony quite a bit this year and they are essential to keep my garden happy. It is good to know that I will not be having problems with pollination! I'm glad I haven't seen any stink bugs in the city yet (knock on wood). Just a couple of miles out and they are really a HUGE problem.

Here are all the other plants I potted today. I think it was a little too hot for some of them (eggplant especially). The leaves started to get all wilty-looking. Well, it is 4pm, and it looks like that storm they predicted will be here soon so I better bring the plants inside. One day they will be able to withstand a thunderstorm, but I don't think today is the day.

Peas with homemade bamboo trellis

Early girl 50 tomato starter plant

Right: Mammoth Jalepeno; Left: ichiban japanese eggplant

Zucchini plants. Experiment to see the effect of container size

The balcony

I moved here 2 years ago and I have not yet used the balcony. It is a good size (10x10), but I just haven't found ways to use it. I have thought about buying a grill, but I don't feel comfortable having anything flammable on a wooden balcony. It gets direct sunlight so it is ideal to grow vegetables I think. It might actually get too hot in the dead of summer. But we shall see.

 The first thing I plan to do before I start the veggie garden is to waterproof the whole balcony. We haven't had many sunny days so I have to wait for the weather to improve. While I wait for consecutive sunny days, I trimmed and re-potted the rosemary. I want it to grow vertically rather than horizontally. This is the first resident of the balcony garden.

Rosemary in new home

My seedlings are still very cute...I think though the growth should be faster. I suspect I need more light and maybe a heat mat. I'll put together a seed starting setup next year. But for now, I'm just going to continue to wait to see if these seedlings successfully grow up. I also planted lettuce and snap peas. I really want to go buy some arugula as well.

True leaf looking more true leaf-y, but these seedlings are really tiny...

True leaves and rosemary

I've been waiting for the true leaves, but I didn't really know what true leaves are. Just that you are supposed to transfer the seedlings and then start feeding them fertilizer. So I did a little search and found out that the first pair of leaves are actually a part of the seed (cotyledons) and provide nutrient for the plants without photosynthesizing. The true leaves eventually take over sustaining the plant through photosynthesis. I think this is correct, and this information sounds oddly familiar ie: high school horticulture class and college plant physiology. It is so strange, because I really didn't have any interest in plants when I was in school eons ago but now I would be interested in taking these classes again.

Now for a look-see at the seedlings. The zucchinis are doing really well. I left them outside for an hour today and cut 1 seedlings so now each pot has 2 seedlings. Eventually I will wittle them down to 1.

The tomato and pepper seedlings are still tiny. I really think they need a warmer environment...I'm just going just keep waiting...but if you squint, you can see the beginnings of true leaf formation. I'm not sure if I need to thin our the tomatoes seedlings. I feel like they are trying really hard to grow so I cannot chose which one to keep. The basil is also starting to show signs of new leaves.

peppers

Tomatoes

Basil

  I mentioned before that this gardening project is really ambitious for me. Other than being a beginner vegetable gardener, generally speaking I'm not very good with plants. I've managed to kill some plants that people have told me are resilient. Really I only have been able to keep pothos alive. More recently I have added zz plant, jade plant, and dwarf umbrella plant. I have some herbs growing in the kitchen such as these rosemary plant. My mom pointed out to me that they look ready to be repotted. So this is on my to do list.

Rosemary that needs some TLC