My long overdue garden update
My little balcony garden is doing fantastic! I had my first tomatoes on Friday for breakfast with toast and bacon. They were small tomatoes, as tomatoes grown in containers often are, but very tasty. There should be a few more ready in a couple of days. I've had lots of herbs both fresh and I've already picked and dried some for later. My flowers are everywhere and I love them, they're so cheery!
This is the biggest garden I've had since living here and even though the really hot weather hasn't arrived yet I was still making 4 trips with double watering cans every day to water. It was a pain. Not only that but because I have a double row of containers I was having to move the big ones to get to the outer ones. So I broke down and bought a hose, one of those wrinkled expanding ones. It was a bitch finding adapters to hook it up to my kitchen faucet. I had to cannibalize 3 different ones and it's still not perfect because it leaks and I have to throw a hand towel over the faucet to keep it from spray over the counter, but it's so much better than the alternative. One lady who left a review of the hose said she found an adapter on Amazon so I'll keep looking. I also bought an 18 inch watering wand so now I don't have to move pots around to water. There's also a small leak where the wand screws into the hose but again, so much better than hauling all the water by hand. Besides it's rather refreshing to have a trickle of cool water on my toes in the heat (or into my armpit when I'm doing the hanging baskets!).
So very picture heavy under the cut. I really should get a Vimeo account and do a slide-show link like
devilc. I'll look into that.
Here's a long shot of the right side of the balcony
The closest tower is my summer squash and the further on is the cucumbers which have their first blossoms! The red snake in the background is my new hose! Behind the big tubs on the bench are my two peppers and two tomatoes.
Baby squash! These are Dirani squash from Lebanon. Unfortunately the one is failing. Hopefully it won't be a trend.
My beans - both pole and bush. I have blossoms! Unfortunately Phoukathecat likes to munch on the leaves. The poles are a bit drunken because I didn't want to secure them to the railing so I could move the pots it need be. I'll figure out something better next year.
The pole beans are a purple variety and the bush are tri-colored (green/purple/yellow). Hopefully I'll get a couple of meals out of them.
A view from the right side of the garden
Peppers! The pale yellow ones in the foreground with the coleus at their base are Cajun-belle peppers. And those in the background are Mexi-belle. They're like little bell peppers but with a little zing. I've had several from both plants so far. They're small but plentiful! I want to make some tiny little stuffed peppers! So cute!
These are the tomatoes I enjoyed on Friday morning. They were fully ripe by then.
Some of my herbs. From left to right: lemon thyme, oregano, basil and a straggly oregano left over from last year. The long box of peppermint is to the left.
Some of my pretties! Purple and fuchsia petunias with sweet alyssum.
Another shot of the left side of the balcony. You can see more pots of herbs and more pretties in the boxes over the railing.
A long shot of those petunias with another box of vinca and asparagus fern to the left.
The first few years I didn't really plant flowers, only edibles, and now I see how much more joy I get from my garden with pretty things to see. Not that veggies aren't pretty, but...you see what I mean.
The tomato on the left is my Black Prince. No really! That's it's name. Those bright green tomatoes will turn a deep purplish-green when ripe and have a lovely acidic bite. I like my tomatoes more robust and acidic than sweet. Plus those tomatoes will be considerably larger than the other plant's.
More pretty purple petunias (with some calendula on the left side of the box that has it's first bud now) and beyond a hanging basket of dwarf snapdragons that the hummingbirds love. Those hanging baskets are normally $8 but we had a sale of $5 apiece and that one was on the half price cart because there were no blooms on it and we had a new shipment that came in. So I got that puppy for $2.50 minus my discount! Score!
Actually, except for the purple petunias all of my flowers were on the discount cart because they either didn't have blossoms at the time or perhaps one of a 6-pack had died.
Well, there they are. I hope you had as much fun looking at them as I do. Sorry I can't share in the taste.
This entry was originally posted at http://ixchel55.dreamwidth.org/357977.html. Please comment there using OpenID.
This is the biggest garden I've had since living here and even though the really hot weather hasn't arrived yet I was still making 4 trips with double watering cans every day to water. It was a pain. Not only that but because I have a double row of containers I was having to move the big ones to get to the outer ones. So I broke down and bought a hose, one of those wrinkled expanding ones. It was a bitch finding adapters to hook it up to my kitchen faucet. I had to cannibalize 3 different ones and it's still not perfect because it leaks and I have to throw a hand towel over the faucet to keep it from spray over the counter, but it's so much better than the alternative. One lady who left a review of the hose said she found an adapter on Amazon so I'll keep looking. I also bought an 18 inch watering wand so now I don't have to move pots around to water. There's also a small leak where the wand screws into the hose but again, so much better than hauling all the water by hand. Besides it's rather refreshing to have a trickle of cool water on my toes in the heat (or into my armpit when I'm doing the hanging baskets!).
So very picture heavy under the cut. I really should get a Vimeo account and do a slide-show link like
devilc. I'll look into that.
Here's a long shot of the right side of the balcony
The closest tower is my summer squash and the further on is the cucumbers which have their first blossoms! The red snake in the background is my new hose! Behind the big tubs on the bench are my two peppers and two tomatoes.
Baby squash! These are Dirani squash from Lebanon. Unfortunately the one is failing. Hopefully it won't be a trend.
My beans - both pole and bush. I have blossoms! Unfortunately Phoukathecat likes to munch on the leaves. The poles are a bit drunken because I didn't want to secure them to the railing so I could move the pots it need be. I'll figure out something better next year.
The pole beans are a purple variety and the bush are tri-colored (green/purple/yellow). Hopefully I'll get a couple of meals out of them.
A view from the right side of the garden
Peppers! The pale yellow ones in the foreground with the coleus at their base are Cajun-belle peppers. And those in the background are Mexi-belle. They're like little bell peppers but with a little zing. I've had several from both plants so far. They're small but plentiful! I want to make some tiny little stuffed peppers! So cute!
These are the tomatoes I enjoyed on Friday morning. They were fully ripe by then.
Some of my herbs. From left to right: lemon thyme, oregano, basil and a straggly oregano left over from last year. The long box of peppermint is to the left.
Some of my pretties! Purple and fuchsia petunias with sweet alyssum.
Another shot of the left side of the balcony. You can see more pots of herbs and more pretties in the boxes over the railing.
A long shot of those petunias with another box of vinca and asparagus fern to the left.
The first few years I didn't really plant flowers, only edibles, and now I see how much more joy I get from my garden with pretty things to see. Not that veggies aren't pretty, but...you see what I mean.
The tomato on the left is my Black Prince. No really! That's it's name. Those bright green tomatoes will turn a deep purplish-green when ripe and have a lovely acidic bite. I like my tomatoes more robust and acidic than sweet. Plus those tomatoes will be considerably larger than the other plant's.
More pretty purple petunias (with some calendula on the left side of the box that has it's first bud now) and beyond a hanging basket of dwarf snapdragons that the hummingbirds love. Those hanging baskets are normally $8 but we had a sale of $5 apiece and that one was on the half price cart because there were no blooms on it and we had a new shipment that came in. So I got that puppy for $2.50 minus my discount! Score!
Actually, except for the purple petunias all of my flowers were on the discount cart because they either didn't have blossoms at the time or perhaps one of a 6-pack had died.
Well, there they are. I hope you had as much fun looking at them as I do. Sorry I can't share in the taste.
This entry was originally posted at http://ixchel55.dreamwidth.org/357977.html. Please comment there using OpenID.