First harvest...kinda sorta & garden buys

I had my first harvest of the season today! I chopped the top of my extra snow pea tips and added it to my salad. The peas added a beautiful deep green color. I wish I had a whole bunch more for stir fry, but it was quite delicious in the salad too.

Overgrown peas

Pea shoots in salad

I made 3 purchases for the garden in the last few days. The first arrived today....

I've seen garden videos that show the amazing effect of mycorrhizae on  vegetable plants. Of course I will have to run a little experiment to test its effectiveness for vegetables grown in containers. I'm really excited to see the effect it has.

Jerusalem artichoke roots in container

I have absolutely fallen in love with Jerusalem artichoke. I love to eat them raw in a salad but they are also super scrumptious stir fried with a little bit of oil and garlic. I have been reading again and again how easy it is to grow this root vegetable - I guess it is practically a weed. I am so excited to be growing them this year. The plan is to grow them in my larger 18 gallon self watering container. My thought is to grow the Jerusalem artichoke with fava beans, mache and arugula. I want to put them in soil as soon as possible, but we are still getting freezing temperatures. So I put one of the artichoke in soil in a little container about two weeks ago.

And now...I have roots!! So very cool! I can't wait to put them in their permanent home.

Here is also a little update on my yuzu tree that I started from seed around May of 2012. I think the size difference is completely due to the difference in container size. I plan to repot them both into bigger pots. I'm really excited about these tree seedlings and can't wait to get some yuzu fruit.

started same time but different sizes!

New growth on larger plant

Indoors snow pea container garden and rooting bay leaves?

I'm really excited that the little seedlings are growing quite happily. The snow peas have outgrown their little starting pots and was starting to get big enough to get tangled with each other. Unfortunately, the soil is still frozen and I can't quite move them outside yet. So the only solution is to transfer them to the bigger pots and keep them indoors until it get a little warmer. Usually, I hate brining outside containers indoors because of all the insects living in the soil. I'm just hoping the freeze killed any critters inside so I won't have any creepy crawlies inside the house.

Almost a week and half year old snow pea seedlings

Busting out of the paper pots

I am going to be growing these in the 3 3-gallon mainstay container. I was actually hoping to distributing among more containers for some nitrogen fixing, but it'll have to do for now. I finished transfer to one, I hope to finish the other two in the next few days.

3 gallon container with snow pea...charm city garden container #1!!!

I've never had very good luck trellising pes...it always ends up being a tangled mess. For the first container, I am using a combination of plastic poles from the tomato cage and string. I also plan to use metal grids that I used in the community garden if I can still find it. But I must say it was so much fun playing with soil again...even if it was inside.

I tied each pea to a string, hopefully will trellis right on up the string

I have another puzzle to figure out. I got some bay leave cutting and am trying to get it to root. I've had it in water for almost a month and I see no signs of roots. I've been reading that bay leave cuttings do better in soil. I'm going to take one ... maybe two branches and try to root them in soil. Hope it works since I really really want to grow my own bay leaves! If you have any experience with this, I am open to any suggestions.

Bay leaves have been sitting in water for a month!!

Absolutely no roots in sight...

Lots o pea seedings!

I finally graduated from the little seedling setup on my windowsill and got myself a rack and lights. I have to say, I had some difficulties finding shorter shop lights and finally found it at Walmart.  It is an aquarium light (I think) but it did say grow light on it so I'm thinking it is OK.

I sowed some seeds (broccoli, brussel sprouts, cumin, fennel, lettuce, red lettuce, mustard, marigold) on 1/23 so it has been a little over a week. Most of the seeds have germinated. The cumin and mustard seeds were from my pantry...and they have not germinated yet. Also, the lettuce has not either.

1.5 week old seedlings...not all have germinated

Top three brussel sprouts, bottom broccoli (one cumin on the far left)

Kale in front and fennel seedlings in the back

I started snow peas and fava beans in wet paper towels and them sowed them in soil. I may have started this too early as they grow pretty quickly. They are kind of ready to be transplanted outside but it is FREEZING outside. For the snow peas, I'll have to bring a couple of containers inside and grow them inside for a while. If I can just get home fast home before dark to change the soil...

Snow peas, peas everywhere!

3 fava bean plants

Need better setup to start seeds

I have a super low tech setup for starting my seeds. I was away over the weekend and didn't set up my lamp. The brussel sprouts, broccoli and kale germinated but without lights, got really leggy.  I really need to make a better setup for starting the seeds

My simple setup

Leggy looking seedlings

Not only that, I have my starter in an empty salad container and left the lid on. It probably got too humid in there and I found some white fuzzy things on them. I think this is fungus. I read a little about damping off in seedlings but I don't think what I have at the moment is hurting my plants. I might start another tray of the same thing just to be on the safe side. I also left the top off and got some peroxide to spray to kill whatever it is that is growing.

White fuzzies on my toilet paper rolls

Here is a quick picture of how I make bottoms on my paper towel seed starting pot. I usually first cut the toilet roll in half so I can make 2 starter pots per roll. In this picture I did not cut it into two because I wanted a long one.

First press the toilet paper flat, then fold again so that the crease made in the first step touch (basically making the toilet paper into a box). Make a little cut on 4 corners and fold over like a bottom of a box.

So much prepping to do!

Once again, I have been lazy about cleaning up at the end of last season. I have to pull out all the plants in the containers and amend the soil a bit. But the biggest thing I need to do is to fix my wind/sun breaking shade cloth. After 2 years, it needs a little TLC. It is a pain to do but this shade cloth is an absolute necessity on the balcony container garden.

If you look closely , you can see I have used a chopstick to keep the shade cloth tied up

I started some seeds a couple of days ago. Of course the day after I started the seeds it snows! I just can't wait for it to get warm so I can play in the soil!

Seeds started in my toilet paper roll pots

Post-it to keep track of what is what

Garden 2013! A new beginning!

Happy new year everyone! It is a bright sunny day here in Baltimore but very cold at 27F.  My gardening spirit is quickly awakening and with the sun being so bright I had to get some seeds started. I've decided for this year's container garden I'm going to try different varieties. I have enough hot peppers in the freezer so I won't be growing any...here is a picture of all the seeds I'm going to be using this year. I have too many so some of it will have to go into the community garden.

I'm also going to try to grow cumin and mustard from the kitchen.

Here is another new vegetable I am going to try to grow that I'm totally excited about: Sunchoke or Jerusalem artichoke. These are supposed to be really easy to grow in containers and quite prolific. If you've never tried it before you should, they are quite delicious.

What will you be growing in your garden this year. Just can't wait for spring!! Ending with a picture of kale that I've overwintered...well, really it is just that I've been too lazy to pull out.