The real Sucker?!

I knew my veggie plants are growing but when you see them everyday you don't realize just how quickly they are growing. This is a picture of the tomato plant (early girl 50) 3 weeks ago.

And here is the tomato plant today!

I'm so proud  \\(^_^)//
I have been pinching the "suckers" (not too many) as it grows since the early girl is an indeterminate variety. A couple of days ago we had a thunderstorm and the plant was starting to lean sideways. After the storm, I went to tie the stem to the support bamboo pole (the metal tomato cage was all wobbly so I switched to the bamboo pole) and I couldn't tell which stem was the main stem.

I originally thought the branch with red arrow was the main stem. But after stepping back, I think this is just a big sucker (haha) and the blue arrow is in fact the main stem. I am not sure if I should cut the red arrow stem and try to root it in water or something or leave it be. Both stems have flowers on them now. I've read it is OK to keep 1-2 suckers but I feel like I should allow the plant to concentrate all its energy on the main stem (especially because it is confined to a container). Any suggestions?
One of the lettuces in the mesclun mix is starting to flower (bolt). It seems to early to do this.

Here is the package picture:

And here is my planter of mesclun:

Looks good but not quite like the package. I may need to find another location where it can get more sun but not direct sunlight....I think I might have a small salad tonight anyway! My first real harvest??

Wind barrier

Since ikea was out of the wind barrier in the color I wanted, I decided to make one. The total cost was about $40: 5'x16' sun screen fabric ($25),  nylon rope ($7) and grommits ($7).

My balcony transformed from this

to this:

I made enough to cover the whole balcony but left one side open because this screen is too effective. Today the balcony temp was 80-100 and with the rain last night it was too muggy without any breeze. Another great thing about this screen is that it creates some privacy. As you can see, the area in front of the balcony is a parking lot so the screen makes the balcony more private.
The zucchinis that had the wind burn have recovered very nicely and male flowers are starting to appear.

All in all, this balcony garden is progressing quite well. Now the only thing to finalize everything is to get a board so that the pots do not sit directly on the balcony. 

Seaweed fertilizer

I did a little research to see if nori can be used to make seaweed fertilizer. I didn't find much, so I decided to compare the nutrient content of nori and kelp. Plant macronutrient (Nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, calcium, magnesium, and sulfur) aka mineral (for human food) content in foods should be described in the USDA nutrient database. I compared the mineral content of kelp with lavar (I think this is nori). The table below lists the minerals for 100g of kelp/lavar. I included amino acids since I thought this may be the source of nitrogen (though I am not sure of this).

Nutrient	units	KELP	LAVAR
Calcium, Ca	mg	168	70
Iron, Fe	mg	2.85	1.8
Magnesium, Mg	mg	121	2
Phosphorus, P	mg	42	58
Potassium, K	mg	89	356
Sodium, Na	mg	233	48
Zinc, Zn	mg	1.23	1.05
Copper, Cu	mg	0.13	0.264
Manganese, Mn	mg	0.2	0.988
Selenium, Se	mcg	0.7	0.7
Tryptophan	g	0.048	0.043
Threonine	g	0.055	0.232
Isoleucine	g	0.076	0.259
Leucine	g	0.083	0.501
Lysine	g	0.082	0.222
Methionine	g	0.025	0.145
Cystine	g	0.098	0.1
Phenylalanine	g	0.043	0.273
Tyrosine	g	0.026	0.254
Valine	g	0.072	0.402
Arginine	g	0.065	0.285
Histidine	g	0.024	0.14
Alanine	g	0.122	0.651
Aspartic acid	g	0.125	0.567
Glutamic acid	g	0.268	0.547
Glycine	g	0.1	0.363
Proline	g	0.073	0.251
Serine	g	0.098	0.299

In terms of the "macronutrients", kelp and lavar is quite comparable. Lavar is lower in calcium and magnesium, but is richer in potassium. This is as far as I got scientifically and I pretty much made up my recipe for the fertilizer. I took 2 sheets of nori and shredded it before adding to a gallon of water. I also added 3 tablespoon of coffee (for nitrogen) and 3 tablespoon of crushed eggshells (for calcium).

I mixed it up on Friday and left it on the floor, shaking it up every once in a while. I decided to start the experiment on Wednesday since the tomato and basil seedlings I set up for the experiment needed some water. Lemme just say, even if this experiment shows that the seaweed fertilizer is fantastic, I will not be using it. It smells SO bad. I had the seedlings inside, but I had to take them out after using this "fertilizer" nastiness.

So now they live in this little drawer that I found at my friend's apartment complex. I will have to find another way to fertilize my plants. Speaking of free stuff for the garden, I also found this little table. It is amazing the things people throw away!

And today I found this under my zucchini pot...I did a little searching and I believe it is an earwig. Ewwww....

Fertilizer experiment update

Gregor Mendel experimented with peas and became the father of modern genetics. The peas, however, do not want to cooperate with me. Actually, they just grew too fast and I needed to transplant them before I could start the experiment. The one pea plant in the MiracleGro (MG) potting soil was growing the fastest - which shows that the cheap soil is cheap for a reason. It may be my imagination, but I feel like the plant in the MG (with the fertilizer) is lanky compared to the plants in the non-fertilized soil. It is difficult to make any conclusion when I have only 1 plant in the MG.

I made a self-watering container using water bottles, a Chinese takeout container, and a styrofoam cup using the instructions at Bucolic Bushwick as a guide.  The end product is not as elegant as Elaine's but hopefully it will do the job. I transplanted my peas and put together a simple trellis using bamboo and string. So now I have 2 pots of peas!

To update on all my other plants. I've got flowers on my zucchini plants!! (the ones on the ground floor) These are male flowers...I guess the female flowers are being coy. I've read that it is normal for the male flowers to come first. One of the flowers were open in the morning and was very beautiful.  I didn't expect vegetable plants to be visually pleasing so it was a nice surprise.

The tomato and pepper seedlings are recovering from the wind/sun overexposure (I think) and seem happy on my windowsill.

The arugula seedlings are also looking good. I'm really excited about these little guys. Even the little seedlings taste really good.

The dill seedlings are starting to look more like dill. They are super cute.

Hardening off seedlings and bugs in the garden

I am now 99% sure the damage I saw on the zucchini leaf was wind/sun damage. If I think about it, I moved the zucchini plants from indoors to outdoors into the strong winds without any transition period (or hardening them off). The reason why the zucchinis on the ground floor are doing better because they are in the shade and the fence protected them from strong winds. The seedlings were so large compared to the tomatoes and peppers that I didn't really think twice about leaving them outside. They are now doing OK, so I am optimistic that they will continue to thrive. I left the tomato and pepper seedlings (which are more delicate) out for 7-8 hours (albeit them being protected in the plastic box) on a windy day. I didn't realize it then, but I now see some damage on the leaves that look very similar (leaves turning white-ish and looking dry) to the zucchini leaf. I read a very good article here. The author says that the seedlings sometime can recover from these damages if they are babied for a while. So I'll keep a close eye on them and hope they will survive.

You can see the leaf is turning white. The edges of the leaf is a little dry.

  I found my first pest(s) in my garden the other day. Aphids on the jalapeno pepper plant! Before trying out dish soap water spray, I tried mechanical removal (twice) with a Q-tip. The infestation wasn't bad so for now I think this is working. I'll keep a close eye on it. I had no idea that aphids had wings...or maybe the winged ones were not aphids.

If you look close, there are some aphids on the leaves. It was much worse before the Q-tip treatment

While my parents were in town, my mom and I found a hornet hive under the balcony. We knocked it off (since it appeared empty) and so I thought that was the end of it. But a week or so ago I noticed the hornets were back rebuilding their home. I'm not sure if I should remove them. I think I will have to since now I am worried that they will come find me on the balcony and sting me.

In DC this weekend I found a couple of fennel plants growing at a parking lot. I didn't realize there was such thing as wild fennel.

Wild fennel

 My friends and I visited the Meadowlark Botanical Gardens. It was a great place to have a picnic! Here are pictures of some really pretty flowers (I don't know what they are though).

Purple flowers

Pink flower

white flowers

succulents in concrete container

Balcony fortress

The biggest barrier to leaving the plants out on the balcony is the crazy wind that whips my poor veggie plants every which way. You can see the peas literally holding on to dear life as the wind tries to pry them off the trellis. I though I found a solution to my problem at ikea. When I went to the store they had several left, but they only had the striped ones left (I wanted the solid white).  The pink and green striped one will make my balcony look like a circus which could be fun but probably will annoy me after a while. The black/white stripe is out of the question since it reminds me of a funeral (at least funerals in Japan). There is another ikea in DC but they are out of stock so I am out of luck. I will probably have to make one using a sun shield cloth I found at Walmart. I really wanted to avoid having to make it myself! In the meantime here is my make-shift wind barrier fortress!

Temporary solution for a windy balcony

Flower buds! (Early girl 50)

I hope they will survive the weekend. The tomato and pepper seedlings that I grew from seeds are looking pretty good too - although they are not ready to be left outside for too long (I tried and they got sun/wind burned). There was a small mis-step, however. I mislabeled my seedlings so I am not sure which ones are the supersweet and which ones are the homestead tomatoes. I guess it will be a surprise if/when they start bearing fruit.

Mesclun in recycled container

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!