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

Peas doing well, and gardening on a budget

The peas are growing quickly - although the germination rate was low (I think I sowed about 12 seeds or so). I have 4 seedlings reaching towards the light. I think it is time to build a trellis for them - I probably should have planted them with the trellis. I will have to be careful not to damage the roots. I want to start a second container of peas this weekend.

Coffee grind to the left, filters to the right.

Gardening is not a cheap hobby, I would guess especially in the beginning. I was going to build self-watering pots with 5 gallon buckets. I still plan to do this, but in the meantime I am using some cheap containers I found at Walmart and old containers I had lying around. I have started composting in two 5-gallon buckets but I'm not entirely sure if I am doing it correctly. I really want to try vermicomposting, but I can't quite get comfortable with the idea of having worms in the house. I read that used coffee grinds are great fertilizer and can be added to soil (<20% volume). We go through a lot of coffee at work so I have been taking the coffee grinds and filter home this past week. I've added some to the compost bucket and drying the rest to set aside for later use.


I broke my plastic watering bucket the other day - I didn't realize how strong I am! I made a new one using an empty juice bottle and it works quite well. I'm trying to think of other ways to save money. It is kind of fun!

First harvest...well, sort of...

Mesclun thinned out

Ok, so this isn't really a "harvest", but the mescluns are growing so thick (due to my poor sowing technique) I decided it needed to be thinned out. The package indicates that the seedlings should be about 6 inches apart. I also think these seedlings are little leggy but I'm going to keep it. I only thinned one side of the pot.

I nibbled on one of the seedlings and it tasted like a cross between lettuce and alfalfa. But it was good, so I collected the seedlings

The seedlings post "harvest"

Cleaned the dirt off the seedlings....added it to my arugula salad with crab cakes! It was really very good. I can't wait to get some grown veggies!

Cleaned

Amaryllis and veggie seedlings

My parents left me a bulb - I think it is an amaryllis. I've had it for 2 years and all it did was grow long leaves. This year, it has decided to bloom. And it is BEAUTIFUL! If you look closely, the petals are glittery and shiny.

  Now for the edibles. The zucchinis are doing really well, so I transplanted one into a bigger pot. I don't want to take up too many pots with zucchinis so I'm not sure what I will do with the leftover seedlings.

The tomato, peppers and basil aren't doing as well. They just aren't growing. It is getting a little warmer here, but probably still not warm enough. I thought maybe they were crowded in the newpaper pots so I thinned them out and for the stronger looking ones I repotted them in their own little newspaper pots. I also made a foiled line container so as to maximize the light from the window and my little desk lamp. Lets see how they do.

 I recently planted mesclun greens and sugar peas. The greens are sprouting like crazy and the sugar peas are starting to show its little head. I really want to get some arugula as well. This is on my weekend shopping list (as well as some starter plants...I still hope my seedlings will grow but just as a back up.)

Mesclun green seedlings

Sugar snap peas

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

Mom's wisdom

My mom has been helping me a lot with my vegetable garden project, giving me advise and sharing her experience with me. She is leaving on Saturday so I will be left to fend for myself. Hopefully she will keep up with my progress through this blog and continue giving me much needed advice. I'm already worried about all the bugs/slugs/insect that may attack my little vegetable plants. Anyway, she showed me this little trick, something I that is done in Southern part of Japan. I was about to compost the roots of the green onions but she said you can regenerate them my planting them in soil....and sure enough, they are happily growing in this little container.