A quick gardening update, to keep the show running.
Yay, it's gardening talk time again \o/ (in case anyone's been wondering: yes, there are other things going on in my life than gardening and being annoyed by Tumblr, and we'll come to that later. Maybe. At some point. If I feel like it.). Not much has been happening except plants growing and/or being destroyed by pigeons but there are a few notable (for a hobby gardener, anyway) things happening, as well.
First of all, just a reminder: I'm not a really good gardener. In fact, my gardening style is the style I do everything else in life with: trial and error, making it up as I go along and sheer dumb luck (explains a lot, doesn't it?). That said, let's continue with the gardening show.
Let's start with something that looked weird last time. The aniseed hysope (an agastache, by the way, and I'm hoping it'll start blooming at some point because bees! And butterflies!). Last time, it looked a little, shall we say, pitiful because I'd just harvested the first time. Since then, it's been doing its damndest to come back and now look at it:
Awesome, huh? I love my plants bushy and plenty and it looks like this one is working on doing me the favor to become just that. Very satisfactory, to say the least.
Next up are the chili plants. They're growing surprisingly well (considering that I probably really should give them a bigger pot) and have started to grow blooms, as you can see here:
My sister, one of my go to persons for gardening, said that I actually have to polinate them by q-tip and hand if I want to have chilis so I'm waiting eagerly for these babies to open. Does anyone on here have any experience with getting chili plants to grow fruit? Any suggestions or hints you'd like to share?
Unfortunately, the strawberries still keep producing only miniscule (but very tasty!) berries but the most important thing is: they keep producing! Look!
Lots and lots of new flowers! And err, berries:
Also, anyone remember how I said that I had to throw away last year's lemon verbena because it was dead? I was wrong.
Yes, they're growing out of the trashbag I put them in (it's my bag for old unusable soil and plant parts and THERE WASN'T EVEN WATER IN THERE THE SOIL WAS DRY AS A BONE HOW THE HELL DID THAT HAPPEN???). Now I have to figure out how to get them out of there and then where to put them in since the pot I used last year has this year's lemon verbena in it. Did I mention "sheer dumb luck" is a big part of my gardening "skill"? Yeah.
Anyway. I finally pulled out the misfigured radishes and old spinach plants and seeded new ones on the weekend and look who's back:
Yep, new radishes. They grew so fast, you could almost watch them do it, no joke. Spinach took a bit of time but it's also back:
Above the crates, we also have a smallish pot with a mix of bee and butterfly friendly flowers I decided to seed out on the weekend, just to see what would come out and it's been growing pretty wild, too:
I'm kinda excited to see how many of those will actually have flowers and how many will just look like weeds.
I also pinched out a few of the gooseberry's bigger leaves and am now hoping I did the right thing. It does look a little pitiful now :S
Also, last but not least, two curiosities in Dad's pots.
Yep, we have trees on our balcony. The bigger one in the second picture has been with us for at least two years now and I especially like the smaller one in the upper picture. It's so unbearably cute! (they just happened by accident, by the way. We get tons of tree seeds blown into our pots each year and apparently those two got stuck. We just water them from time to time but other than that, we don't repot them or anything and they still keep growing. Weird trees.)
Okay, so that's it. Now back to trying to getting my academic life back on track. Yeehaw.
First of all, just a reminder: I'm not a really good gardener. In fact, my gardening style is the style I do everything else in life with: trial and error, making it up as I go along and sheer dumb luck (explains a lot, doesn't it?). That said, let's continue with the gardening show.
Let's start with something that looked weird last time. The aniseed hysope (an agastache, by the way, and I'm hoping it'll start blooming at some point because bees! And butterflies!). Last time, it looked a little, shall we say, pitiful because I'd just harvested the first time. Since then, it's been doing its damndest to come back and now look at it:
Awesome, huh? I love my plants bushy and plenty and it looks like this one is working on doing me the favor to become just that. Very satisfactory, to say the least.
Next up are the chili plants. They're growing surprisingly well (considering that I probably really should give them a bigger pot) and have started to grow blooms, as you can see here:
My sister, one of my go to persons for gardening, said that I actually have to polinate them by q-tip and hand if I want to have chilis so I'm waiting eagerly for these babies to open. Does anyone on here have any experience with getting chili plants to grow fruit? Any suggestions or hints you'd like to share?
Unfortunately, the strawberries still keep producing only miniscule (but very tasty!) berries but the most important thing is: they keep producing! Look!
Lots and lots of new flowers! And err, berries:
Also, anyone remember how I said that I had to throw away last year's lemon verbena because it was dead? I was wrong.
Yes, they're growing out of the trashbag I put them in (it's my bag for old unusable soil and plant parts and THERE WASN'T EVEN WATER IN THERE THE SOIL WAS DRY AS A BONE HOW THE HELL DID THAT HAPPEN???). Now I have to figure out how to get them out of there and then where to put them in since the pot I used last year has this year's lemon verbena in it. Did I mention "sheer dumb luck" is a big part of my gardening "skill"? Yeah.
Anyway. I finally pulled out the misfigured radishes and old spinach plants and seeded new ones on the weekend and look who's back:
Yep, new radishes. They grew so fast, you could almost watch them do it, no joke. Spinach took a bit of time but it's also back:
Above the crates, we also have a smallish pot with a mix of bee and butterfly friendly flowers I decided to seed out on the weekend, just to see what would come out and it's been growing pretty wild, too:
I'm kinda excited to see how many of those will actually have flowers and how many will just look like weeds.
I also pinched out a few of the gooseberry's bigger leaves and am now hoping I did the right thing. It does look a little pitiful now :S
Also, last but not least, two curiosities in Dad's pots.
Yep, we have trees on our balcony. The bigger one in the second picture has been with us for at least two years now and I especially like the smaller one in the upper picture. It's so unbearably cute! (they just happened by accident, by the way. We get tons of tree seeds blown into our pots each year and apparently those two got stuck. We just water them from time to time but other than that, we don't repot them or anything and they still keep growing. Weird trees.)
Okay, so that's it. Now back to trying to getting my academic life back on track. Yeehaw.