2008 Gardening Recap
OMG, self. How can you be bored right now. What is wrong with you.
This is the super-duper-long for-posterity (and by "posterity" I mean "reference in the spring, when you decide to do something else foolhardy") gardening recap that I emailed to myself in stages. I still need to look up some specifics, but this is most of it.
General Stuff
My garden consists of ~20 pots on our west-facing second-story deck [second-story compared to the street, anyway - Pittsburgh is hilly], from 4-inch windowsill pots to tubs that probably hold 4 gallons. Nothing especially large. I use potting soil rather than actual out-of-the-ground soil, except for the ones that I didn't plant myself (which did fine in whatever they're planted in). I've used Miracle-Gro potting soil when I couldn't find anything else, but I rather preferred the pro mix (name to be looked up shortly). Next year I think I'll try mulching some of the larger pots to cut down on water loss.
I've used Osmocote slow-release fertilizer in most of them. I was given a bag of Miracle-Gro soluble fertilizer early in the season, so I used that up, and then switched to this other stuff (whose name I need to look up) not long ago. Either of the latter were used once every 1 or 2 weeks. I'm considering Osmocote plus an organic soluble fertilizer next year, compost tea or kelp and fish meal or something.
Pest control consists of a spray bottle of dish soap and water, or jumping around screaming and calling Jay for help like a total girly-girl. The pests in question are whitefly and tomato hornworm, respectively. Knock wood, those are the only ones I've had this year. (All we did with the hornworm was try to pry it off the twig, fail - SCARY - then cut off the sprig of plant it was on and stick it far away in another part of the yard. We never saw the thing again, so I'm guessing the neighborhood birds did the rest.)
Upkeep consists of watering everything as needed for about ten minutes before I leave in the morning. "As needed" is rather more frequent when it comes to containers, compared to planting in the ground, because water drains through and evaporates out more quickly when you have a smaller mass of soil to hold it. Even so, it was rarely a big problem. When it was especially hot and dry, I'd re-water them in the evening if they looked wilted. Only a few of the plants were particularly water-guzzling, namely the tomatoes, hot peppers, Joe Pye weed, and morning glory.
Herbs/Small Stuff on the Ledge
Point one: Try not to put stuff on the ledge. It doesn't get as much light due to the angle of the house vs. the sun, and we lost one decorative pot to an invader cat (more on that in a bit). I like herbs, but I think a large strawberry pot would be a better investment than 5-6 little ones.
So anyway.
CATNIP - from seed
Catnip is related to mint, and as such, is easy to grow and hard to kill. It gets a very slow start, but after that, it's fine. I intend to keep growing catnip. Toby has claws and knows where I sleep. ;)
One problem I've been having is "attacks" from other cats in the neighborhood. Originally the catnip was on the ledge, but it mysteriously fell and broke the pot, so I had to replant it and move it to the patio table. Since then it's been OK, but it's been tipped over at least once, with strands of incriminating white fur sticking to the leaves. :P I don't really mind that much, but I think I might plant it in a lower container on the ground next time.
CAT GRASS - from seed
Cat grass = oats. Mine actually went to seed late in the season, then died off. I didn't wind up replanting it. Easy to grow, and Toby likes playing with it, though he doesn't really chew on it much. More the novelty factor.
MINIATURE PURPLE BASIL, Ocimium basilicum 'Minimum Pupurascens'
(bought at Plant Auction, originally grown by Mulberry Creek Herb
Farm)
Good stuff. Grew very well. Still going. I've used bits of it every now and then, and it doesn't have the weird soapy flavor I had last year. I'm still not sure whether that's an issue of cultivation or species/cultivar.
CHIVES, one from seed and one bought at Auction, Allium schoenoprasum 'Album'
I like growing chives, but don't use them enough. The 'Album' chives died back late in the season, but I think that was my fault - they were overshadowed by the tomatoes. I should probably rethink growing chives, unless, again, I get a multi-herb pot setup. Simply because of space vs. use considerations.
LIME LEMON BALM, Melissa officinalis 'Lime' (bought at Auction)
Again, I like growing lemon balm but don't usually use it up. I thought this one bit the dust late in the season, but it has thrown out some new leaves, so I think it's still with us. Had some problems with whitefly early on, which happened last time I tried to grow lemon balm, too, but since I finally got on the ball and put together a spray bottle full of soapy water to have on hand, that shouldn't be a problem again.
THAI BASIL, - bought as-is (Home Depot IIRC)
An impulse buy. Sry. It's grown very well, but I don't use it enough; I don't think we've cooked Thai at home at all since buying it. Whoops. It flowers a lot, so it needs to be pinched constantly, but it is flourishing pretty well.
Hanging Baskets
NASTURTIUM - from seed
Nasturtium was my filler this year - early in the season, wherever there was a bare spot all around the garden, I'd plug it with either nasturtium or marigolds. Nasturtiums grow fast, and the flowers are pretty. However, the dying leaves get to be a stringy mess. For filler I should probably stick to marigolds or begonias, which are easier to deadhead.
BEGONIAS - bought in starter packs
I have a hanging basket of begonias as well as a few that were stuck in an old popcorn bowl with a few holes drilled in the bottom. The latter have become ridiculously lush. The hanging basket is doing pretty well, too. Next year I plan to do the popcorn bowl thing again with some other scavenged bit of cheap dishware.
WHATEVER THAT NEEDLY THING WITH THE FLUFFY FLOWERS IS (find out real name, duh)
Another gift. They look like they'd trail, but they actually stand up fairly straight. They have fluffy multicolored flowers that seem to open only in the day. Nice little plant. I'd use it again, probably for filler rather than a hanging basket, mainly because the flowers are hard to see if they're over your head.
Thought: how about basil / other herbs in the hanging baskets next year?
Everything Else
THE CLASS CONTAINER
Coleus 'Freckles'
Dusty miller
Lantana
I took a class in container gardening in May. It is not to blame for this whole circus; I'd already started at that point. I did learn more about planting and taking care of containers, like the need to water more frequently because there's less soil to draw from. And so on. They also handed out a list of species/cultivars with growing habits that are well-suited for containers - smaller, more compact, etc. - which could be quite useful.
As part of the class everyone got to plant a decorative container with a few selections. I picked three for full sun, mostly orange and white. I wouldn't say it's artful, but it's managed to thrive. The coleus is starting to look more sparse now, but I'm guessing that's just from the oncoming fall.
I'm just going to skip the upsetting story of the bed that faced the sidewalk. We grew celosia (the flame-shaped ones, not the brain-shaped ones) and impatiens in a black-gold-and-white arrangement of pots that Jay picked out, but some jackass either attempted to steal them or attempted to fuck with us by looking like they were going to steal them. Plus the celosia died off after being half-dug up. So, yeah. I'd still kinda like to beautify that little spot if we can, but we may have to plant something in the ground instead. And it would have to be just about indestructible. I wonder if mint would escape...
After this stupid-ass business, the remaining celosia and impatiens were relocated to the porch, where they were left unmolested. I will try to put something there from the get-go next time, because it makes that side of the porch look more welcoming.
OK, I guess I didn't skip it after all. Heh.
CELOSIA (gift, as plants)
a.k.a. The Brain Plants. These cool little things just sort of mind their own business and keep getting bigger. Nice colors, too.
LAVENDER, Lavandula angustifolia 'Croxton's Wild' (bought at Auction)
This poor thing is kind of crushed between the heliotropes and some marigolds. It's doing fine, but given more room it would probably do better. I think this will survive the winter if it's protected properly, so I need to read up on it.
HELIOTROPE (from seed)
Incredibly slow. Amazingly slow. Slower than basil, even slower than the hot peppers. However, I think heliotropes are pretty, and as a curiosity / bit of color, it was nice.
MARIGOLD (starter packs)
The second filler, next to nasturtium, and one that I would keep over nasturtium next time. Not too flashy-original, but it adds color. IIRC it also repels bugs, or something.
SPEARMINT
Left behind by previous tenants in a container. Grew back from the roots after being outside all winter. It's a mint. So. Mint is terribly invasive, but nice to grow in pots IMO. I made syrup from it once, intend to do it again, and twice tore out chunks to give to other people (also in pots). It grew back handily from all of that. Mint is kind of indestructible.
TOMATOES: ROMA
I was given two seedlings by my future in-laws; they have some family history, and as such I was kind of terrified. My terror was groundless at the time, but accidentally prescient. These plants were a royal pain almost from day one, constantly wracked by blossom end rot, early blight, tomato hornworms (just one, thankfully), whitefly, and, recently, some terrifying barnacle-like alien spines that I'm sure will hatch a new stomach-churning creature that defies description.
Luckily for them, they also produce magnificent freaking tomatoes. I can't believe I'm saying this, but it's worth it. They're that good.
TOMATOES: YELLOW PEAR-SHAPED VOLUNTEER WHATSITS
Along with the Romas, my future in-laws gave me a little tomato plant that they said they just found growing in their garden. I didn't expect much from it, but it wound up producing lots of grape-sized, pear-shaped, golden yellow tomatoes that were a welcome addition to the sauce. I don't know what variety this is or how it wound up growing randomly in their garden. Another bonus is that it didn't cave to early blight like the Romas did, and was far less susceptible to blossom end rot. It did attract a few whiteflies, but those were easily dealt with (spritz spritz).
Gardening fact of the day: "Volunteer" is another word for "weed", when they show up in containers instead of the ground. No offense to actual human volunteers.
TOMATOES: SOMETHING ELSE
I hope I don't get in trouble for saying this. Sometimes things are left over at work for which there's no earthly use. They plan for 15 people in a class, and one is absent. For instance. You try not to have this happen, but occasionally it just does. In this case, there were a couple of homeless tomato seedlings knocking around, and I called dibs.
I don't know what type they are, but they produce pretty "regular"-looking round red tomatoes, not too huge. They are less problem-prone than the Romas, but more than the Yellow Pear-Shaped Volunteer Whatsits - they get black spots on the tomatoes sometimes, which are gross-looking but don't seem to extend into the fruit. Fairly prolific. I like these, though their flavor is good-not-awesome.
PEAS (Progress #9) (from seed)
And sometimes they outright give things away because they can't be used for their original purpose. Every year a group rents out my workplace to assemble kits of free seeds for elementary school teachers out of donations from (I assume) seed companies. However, they invariably get a bunch of peas and beans that have been coated with fungicide, to keep them from spoiling in storage. Which sounds all well and good, except that they can't be used around small children, because stuffing fungicide up your nose is a bad thing. So the group sets out "free to good home" baskets full of unusable pea and bean seeds. Which is where I got these. And managed not to stuff them up my nose.
Peas are nice to grow because they grow and produce earlier than a lot of other plants, thus getting something going (and picturesque; pea flowers are rather pretty) while it's still early in the year. Mine did OK, not terrific - I think they crowded each other - but we got at least one harvest out of them, and cooked them up in a grilled dish of some sort.
BEANS (something) (from seed)
See long, rambling story under 'Peas.' I made the bad decision to plant these in the same container as corn, half-assedly inspired by the Three Sisters garden of yore, except that in a Three Sisters garden you have A WHOLE FIELD, DUH. So they kinda crowded one another out. The beans were also a bit shaded, I think. Generally they didn't do too well, and we never harvested them. Live and learn.
CORN (from seed)
I didn't really think this would grow. It was very entertaining that it did. Though it never got quite big enough to have viable corn - it had stubby little mini-ears - it was fun as an ornamental. I think it would actually work if I gave it more space and planted fewer stalks; I had about eight stalks in the same largeish pot, when four or six would have sufficed.
GREEN ONIONS (from seed)
Shallots were the main attraction in this overcrowded pot, with a sprinkled little line of green onion seeds down the center. However, the green onions grew like wildfire, and I lost track of the shallots (more in a sec). They took quite a while to grow, but the nice thing about green onions is that they're herb-like in their timeframe - they can just chill out until you need them, unlike fruits/vegetables that need to be harvested right when they're ripe, like tomatoes and zucchini. So I pull a couple of onions whenever I feel like using them. I also tried out a green onion pancake recipe that turned out to be quite good, so that was cool. A+ would grow again.
SHALLOTS (Gray French) (from cloves)
Last year my dad gave me a bag of shallot cloves that he'd ordered online, and because I didn't really have anywhere to plant them at the time, I left them in the proverbial cool, dry place until this spring. They still grew quite well. Unfortunately I didn't pay close enough attention to harvest them at the right time, and the foliage basically vanished - wilted? blended in with the green onions? I have no idea - so I, um, kind of lost them. I did turn up some while digging up green onions, So I expect to find them when I pull out the rest of the container come fall. They may be over-ripe for eating, but I can at least re-plant them.
BELL PEPPERS (gift, from plant)
A slow-ish grower, but not at all troublesome. I quite enjoy having fresh green peppers every so often. Top-heavy, so it needs to lean against a trellis or support of some sort. I'd like to try making quick pickles out of these, too. We'll see how that goes.
CHOCOLATE JOE PYE WEED (over-wintered)
Left by a previous tenant, this grew back from the roots and proved to be a pretty, brown-tinged collection of parallel stems with foamy white flower clusters in the early fall. Very nice. Joe Pye weed is native to this area, so that's neat. (Chocolate is the cultivar title and just refers to the color.)
DILL (volunteer)
Grew out of the Joe Pye weed container - I'm not sure whether it was planted there on purpose or sprang up accidentally. In either case, I didn't wind up using the leaves, but did harvest the seeds.
MORNING GLORY (from seed)
I knew I really shouldn't plant this stuff, because it spreads too much, but I wanted to cover the fence a bit. I hope it doesn't get me beaten up. In contrast to mint, which spreads from the roots and can be bounded by a container or a wall, morning glory apparently blows its seeds from here to next Tuesday, kind of like a dandelion. I should have read up on that. Uh. Anyway, they're gorgeous blue-and-white and purple-and-white flowers, which is making it difficult to be upset with my decision. Sorry.
THAT OTHER THING THAT I DON'T KNOW WHAT IT IS
This was the third container left by the previous tenant. It's a smallish shrub with blue berries, which look like, but may or may not be, blueberries. It grew back from a stick that had been outside all winter, so I hope to bring it back next year and figure out what it is. Early in the year I had underplanted it with some filler, but I will skip that next time and give it more room.
SPINACH (from seed)
Another early one. I believe this was the first thing we harvested. Easy to grow, pick at whatever stage you like (we ate it as baby spinach), nice in salads or stir-fries - we sauteed it up with chicken or sausage a few times. I meant to plant this again in fall, but never got around to cleaning out a container. I may try to squeeze it in before frost.
ZUCCHINI (from seed)
After the peas conked out in early summer, I replanted their container with some zucchini seeds, one of the fastest-growing vegetables around. The resulting plants did not disappoint, with huge, mostly trouble-free leaves, lovely orange flowers, and a manageable one or two zucchinis every week or two - enough to enjoy, not enough to get sick of, which is the usual situation with this excessively prolific vegetable.
THAI HOT PEPPERS 'Red Dragon' and 'Orange Dragon' (from seed)
I bought these seeds last year, I think; they're from the "Renee's Garden" brand. They were a mixture of orange and red hot peppers. Not too many of them sprouted, probably because the seeds were old, but I transferred a couple of each type to a pot and hoped for the best.
This plant was veeeeee-ry slow to grow, so I feared for its life for a while and assumed that it would never mature by the end of the summer - but once it got reasonably hot outside, it picked up the pace and grew to be fairly large. At least one of each type made it, too. It produced quite a lot of peppers, which are still ripening as we speak. I still have only eaten one, because upon eating the first one, I could do nothing for ten minutes but wash my mouth out with milk and wish that I could rip my tongue out and send it through the washing machine. It was possibly the hottest thing I'd ever eaten. I'm not a chili masochist, but I do like reasonably spicy stuff. I was out of my league here.
According to Wikipedia, Thai peppers tend to clock 50,000 to 100,000 Scovilles. Hahaha. Less than habanero or Scotch bonnets, more than chipotle or jalapeno. Yeah, I'd say.
Having said that, I think these would be fantastic as an ingredient in a dish, rather than attempting to eat them whole as I did, so I do intend to keep them.
CUCUMBERS (from seedlings)
The story with the cucumbers is this: In a closet in my office is a box full of seeds for gardens used in classes/summer camps. Sometimes one or two seeds would leak out of the corners of the seed packets, so eventually there was a little drift of naked seeds at the bottom of the box. One of my co-workers decided to plant them and see what they were. Since they didn't have any use for some of the results (and the leftover seeds weren't spoken for, anyway), those were up for grabs. I wound up with two cucumber seedlings, and two cilantro seedlings that didn't last long. The cucumbers did, and while the location wasn't so great - they were jammed back in the least sunny corner because it was all that was left at that point of the summer, and the vines sort of flopped every which way out of the pot - they have produced a cucumber or two every week or two, rather like the zucchini. Since Jay doesn't care for cucumbers, they're all mine, so it has been nice to whip up a salad with some dill every now and then. I also mean to try making some of those quick pickles, like the New Dumpling House puts out as appetizers. Mmmm.
That's kind of an anticlimactic ending. Oh well.
This is the super-duper-long for-posterity (and by "posterity" I mean "reference in the spring, when you decide to do something else foolhardy") gardening recap that I emailed to myself in stages. I still need to look up some specifics, but this is most of it.
General Stuff
My garden consists of ~20 pots on our west-facing second-story deck [second-story compared to the street, anyway - Pittsburgh is hilly], from 4-inch windowsill pots to tubs that probably hold 4 gallons. Nothing especially large. I use potting soil rather than actual out-of-the-ground soil, except for the ones that I didn't plant myself (which did fine in whatever they're planted in). I've used Miracle-Gro potting soil when I couldn't find anything else, but I rather preferred the pro mix (name to be looked up shortly). Next year I think I'll try mulching some of the larger pots to cut down on water loss.
I've used Osmocote slow-release fertilizer in most of them. I was given a bag of Miracle-Gro soluble fertilizer early in the season, so I used that up, and then switched to this other stuff (whose name I need to look up) not long ago. Either of the latter were used once every 1 or 2 weeks. I'm considering Osmocote plus an organic soluble fertilizer next year, compost tea or kelp and fish meal or something.
Pest control consists of a spray bottle of dish soap and water, or jumping around screaming and calling Jay for help like a total girly-girl. The pests in question are whitefly and tomato hornworm, respectively. Knock wood, those are the only ones I've had this year. (All we did with the hornworm was try to pry it off the twig, fail - SCARY - then cut off the sprig of plant it was on and stick it far away in another part of the yard. We never saw the thing again, so I'm guessing the neighborhood birds did the rest.)
Upkeep consists of watering everything as needed for about ten minutes before I leave in the morning. "As needed" is rather more frequent when it comes to containers, compared to planting in the ground, because water drains through and evaporates out more quickly when you have a smaller mass of soil to hold it. Even so, it was rarely a big problem. When it was especially hot and dry, I'd re-water them in the evening if they looked wilted. Only a few of the plants were particularly water-guzzling, namely the tomatoes, hot peppers, Joe Pye weed, and morning glory.
Herbs/Small Stuff on the Ledge
Point one: Try not to put stuff on the ledge. It doesn't get as much light due to the angle of the house vs. the sun, and we lost one decorative pot to an invader cat (more on that in a bit). I like herbs, but I think a large strawberry pot would be a better investment than 5-6 little ones.
So anyway.
CATNIP - from seed
Catnip is related to mint, and as such, is easy to grow and hard to kill. It gets a very slow start, but after that, it's fine. I intend to keep growing catnip. Toby has claws and knows where I sleep. ;)
One problem I've been having is "attacks" from other cats in the neighborhood. Originally the catnip was on the ledge, but it mysteriously fell and broke the pot, so I had to replant it and move it to the patio table. Since then it's been OK, but it's been tipped over at least once, with strands of incriminating white fur sticking to the leaves. :P I don't really mind that much, but I think I might plant it in a lower container on the ground next time.
CAT GRASS - from seed
Cat grass = oats. Mine actually went to seed late in the season, then died off. I didn't wind up replanting it. Easy to grow, and Toby likes playing with it, though he doesn't really chew on it much. More the novelty factor.
MINIATURE PURPLE BASIL, Ocimium basilicum 'Minimum Pupurascens'
(bought at Plant Auction, originally grown by Mulberry Creek Herb
Farm)
Good stuff. Grew very well. Still going. I've used bits of it every now and then, and it doesn't have the weird soapy flavor I had last year. I'm still not sure whether that's an issue of cultivation or species/cultivar.
CHIVES, one from seed and one bought at Auction, Allium schoenoprasum 'Album'
I like growing chives, but don't use them enough. The 'Album' chives died back late in the season, but I think that was my fault - they were overshadowed by the tomatoes. I should probably rethink growing chives, unless, again, I get a multi-herb pot setup. Simply because of space vs. use considerations.
LIME LEMON BALM, Melissa officinalis 'Lime' (bought at Auction)
Again, I like growing lemon balm but don't usually use it up. I thought this one bit the dust late in the season, but it has thrown out some new leaves, so I think it's still with us. Had some problems with whitefly early on, which happened last time I tried to grow lemon balm, too, but since I finally got on the ball and put together a spray bottle full of soapy water to have on hand, that shouldn't be a problem again.
THAI BASIL, - bought as-is (Home Depot IIRC)
An impulse buy. Sry. It's grown very well, but I don't use it enough; I don't think we've cooked Thai at home at all since buying it. Whoops. It flowers a lot, so it needs to be pinched constantly, but it is flourishing pretty well.
Hanging Baskets
NASTURTIUM - from seed
Nasturtium was my filler this year - early in the season, wherever there was a bare spot all around the garden, I'd plug it with either nasturtium or marigolds. Nasturtiums grow fast, and the flowers are pretty. However, the dying leaves get to be a stringy mess. For filler I should probably stick to marigolds or begonias, which are easier to deadhead.
BEGONIAS - bought in starter packs
I have a hanging basket of begonias as well as a few that were stuck in an old popcorn bowl with a few holes drilled in the bottom. The latter have become ridiculously lush. The hanging basket is doing pretty well, too. Next year I plan to do the popcorn bowl thing again with some other scavenged bit of cheap dishware.
WHATEVER THAT NEEDLY THING WITH THE FLUFFY FLOWERS IS (find out real name, duh)
Another gift. They look like they'd trail, but they actually stand up fairly straight. They have fluffy multicolored flowers that seem to open only in the day. Nice little plant. I'd use it again, probably for filler rather than a hanging basket, mainly because the flowers are hard to see if they're over your head.
Thought: how about basil / other herbs in the hanging baskets next year?
Everything Else
THE CLASS CONTAINER
Coleus 'Freckles'
Dusty miller
Lantana
I took a class in container gardening in May. It is not to blame for this whole circus; I'd already started at that point. I did learn more about planting and taking care of containers, like the need to water more frequently because there's less soil to draw from. And so on. They also handed out a list of species/cultivars with growing habits that are well-suited for containers - smaller, more compact, etc. - which could be quite useful.
As part of the class everyone got to plant a decorative container with a few selections. I picked three for full sun, mostly orange and white. I wouldn't say it's artful, but it's managed to thrive. The coleus is starting to look more sparse now, but I'm guessing that's just from the oncoming fall.
I'm just going to skip the upsetting story of the bed that faced the sidewalk. We grew celosia (the flame-shaped ones, not the brain-shaped ones) and impatiens in a black-gold-and-white arrangement of pots that Jay picked out, but some jackass either attempted to steal them or attempted to fuck with us by looking like they were going to steal them. Plus the celosia died off after being half-dug up. So, yeah. I'd still kinda like to beautify that little spot if we can, but we may have to plant something in the ground instead. And it would have to be just about indestructible. I wonder if mint would escape...
After this stupid-ass business, the remaining celosia and impatiens were relocated to the porch, where they were left unmolested. I will try to put something there from the get-go next time, because it makes that side of the porch look more welcoming.
OK, I guess I didn't skip it after all. Heh.
CELOSIA (gift, as plants)
a.k.a. The Brain Plants. These cool little things just sort of mind their own business and keep getting bigger. Nice colors, too.
LAVENDER, Lavandula angustifolia 'Croxton's Wild' (bought at Auction)
This poor thing is kind of crushed between the heliotropes and some marigolds. It's doing fine, but given more room it would probably do better. I think this will survive the winter if it's protected properly, so I need to read up on it.
HELIOTROPE (from seed)
Incredibly slow. Amazingly slow. Slower than basil, even slower than the hot peppers. However, I think heliotropes are pretty, and as a curiosity / bit of color, it was nice.
MARIGOLD (starter packs)
The second filler, next to nasturtium, and one that I would keep over nasturtium next time. Not too flashy-original, but it adds color. IIRC it also repels bugs, or something.
SPEARMINT
Left behind by previous tenants in a container. Grew back from the roots after being outside all winter. It's a mint. So. Mint is terribly invasive, but nice to grow in pots IMO. I made syrup from it once, intend to do it again, and twice tore out chunks to give to other people (also in pots). It grew back handily from all of that. Mint is kind of indestructible.
TOMATOES: ROMA
I was given two seedlings by my future in-laws; they have some family history, and as such I was kind of terrified. My terror was groundless at the time, but accidentally prescient. These plants were a royal pain almost from day one, constantly wracked by blossom end rot, early blight, tomato hornworms (just one, thankfully), whitefly, and, recently, some terrifying barnacle-like alien spines that I'm sure will hatch a new stomach-churning creature that defies description.
Luckily for them, they also produce magnificent freaking tomatoes. I can't believe I'm saying this, but it's worth it. They're that good.
TOMATOES: YELLOW PEAR-SHAPED VOLUNTEER WHATSITS
Along with the Romas, my future in-laws gave me a little tomato plant that they said they just found growing in their garden. I didn't expect much from it, but it wound up producing lots of grape-sized, pear-shaped, golden yellow tomatoes that were a welcome addition to the sauce. I don't know what variety this is or how it wound up growing randomly in their garden. Another bonus is that it didn't cave to early blight like the Romas did, and was far less susceptible to blossom end rot. It did attract a few whiteflies, but those were easily dealt with (spritz spritz).
Gardening fact of the day: "Volunteer" is another word for "weed", when they show up in containers instead of the ground. No offense to actual human volunteers.
TOMATOES: SOMETHING ELSE
I hope I don't get in trouble for saying this. Sometimes things are left over at work for which there's no earthly use. They plan for 15 people in a class, and one is absent. For instance. You try not to have this happen, but occasionally it just does. In this case, there were a couple of homeless tomato seedlings knocking around, and I called dibs.
I don't know what type they are, but they produce pretty "regular"-looking round red tomatoes, not too huge. They are less problem-prone than the Romas, but more than the Yellow Pear-Shaped Volunteer Whatsits - they get black spots on the tomatoes sometimes, which are gross-looking but don't seem to extend into the fruit. Fairly prolific. I like these, though their flavor is good-not-awesome.
PEAS (Progress #9) (from seed)
And sometimes they outright give things away because they can't be used for their original purpose. Every year a group rents out my workplace to assemble kits of free seeds for elementary school teachers out of donations from (I assume) seed companies. However, they invariably get a bunch of peas and beans that have been coated with fungicide, to keep them from spoiling in storage. Which sounds all well and good, except that they can't be used around small children, because stuffing fungicide up your nose is a bad thing. So the group sets out "free to good home" baskets full of unusable pea and bean seeds. Which is where I got these. And managed not to stuff them up my nose.
Peas are nice to grow because they grow and produce earlier than a lot of other plants, thus getting something going (and picturesque; pea flowers are rather pretty) while it's still early in the year. Mine did OK, not terrific - I think they crowded each other - but we got at least one harvest out of them, and cooked them up in a grilled dish of some sort.
BEANS (something) (from seed)
See long, rambling story under 'Peas.' I made the bad decision to plant these in the same container as corn, half-assedly inspired by the Three Sisters garden of yore, except that in a Three Sisters garden you have A WHOLE FIELD, DUH. So they kinda crowded one another out. The beans were also a bit shaded, I think. Generally they didn't do too well, and we never harvested them. Live and learn.
CORN (from seed)
I didn't really think this would grow. It was very entertaining that it did. Though it never got quite big enough to have viable corn - it had stubby little mini-ears - it was fun as an ornamental. I think it would actually work if I gave it more space and planted fewer stalks; I had about eight stalks in the same largeish pot, when four or six would have sufficed.
GREEN ONIONS (from seed)
Shallots were the main attraction in this overcrowded pot, with a sprinkled little line of green onion seeds down the center. However, the green onions grew like wildfire, and I lost track of the shallots (more in a sec). They took quite a while to grow, but the nice thing about green onions is that they're herb-like in their timeframe - they can just chill out until you need them, unlike fruits/vegetables that need to be harvested right when they're ripe, like tomatoes and zucchini. So I pull a couple of onions whenever I feel like using them. I also tried out a green onion pancake recipe that turned out to be quite good, so that was cool. A+ would grow again.
SHALLOTS (Gray French) (from cloves)
Last year my dad gave me a bag of shallot cloves that he'd ordered online, and because I didn't really have anywhere to plant them at the time, I left them in the proverbial cool, dry place until this spring. They still grew quite well. Unfortunately I didn't pay close enough attention to harvest them at the right time, and the foliage basically vanished - wilted? blended in with the green onions? I have no idea - so I, um, kind of lost them. I did turn up some while digging up green onions, So I expect to find them when I pull out the rest of the container come fall. They may be over-ripe for eating, but I can at least re-plant them.
BELL PEPPERS (gift, from plant)
A slow-ish grower, but not at all troublesome. I quite enjoy having fresh green peppers every so often. Top-heavy, so it needs to lean against a trellis or support of some sort. I'd like to try making quick pickles out of these, too. We'll see how that goes.
CHOCOLATE JOE PYE WEED (over-wintered)
Left by a previous tenant, this grew back from the roots and proved to be a pretty, brown-tinged collection of parallel stems with foamy white flower clusters in the early fall. Very nice. Joe Pye weed is native to this area, so that's neat. (Chocolate is the cultivar title and just refers to the color.)
DILL (volunteer)
Grew out of the Joe Pye weed container - I'm not sure whether it was planted there on purpose or sprang up accidentally. In either case, I didn't wind up using the leaves, but did harvest the seeds.
MORNING GLORY (from seed)
I knew I really shouldn't plant this stuff, because it spreads too much, but I wanted to cover the fence a bit. I hope it doesn't get me beaten up. In contrast to mint, which spreads from the roots and can be bounded by a container or a wall, morning glory apparently blows its seeds from here to next Tuesday, kind of like a dandelion. I should have read up on that. Uh. Anyway, they're gorgeous blue-and-white and purple-and-white flowers, which is making it difficult to be upset with my decision. Sorry.
THAT OTHER THING THAT I DON'T KNOW WHAT IT IS
This was the third container left by the previous tenant. It's a smallish shrub with blue berries, which look like, but may or may not be, blueberries. It grew back from a stick that had been outside all winter, so I hope to bring it back next year and figure out what it is. Early in the year I had underplanted it with some filler, but I will skip that next time and give it more room.
SPINACH (from seed)
Another early one. I believe this was the first thing we harvested. Easy to grow, pick at whatever stage you like (we ate it as baby spinach), nice in salads or stir-fries - we sauteed it up with chicken or sausage a few times. I meant to plant this again in fall, but never got around to cleaning out a container. I may try to squeeze it in before frost.
ZUCCHINI (from seed)
After the peas conked out in early summer, I replanted their container with some zucchini seeds, one of the fastest-growing vegetables around. The resulting plants did not disappoint, with huge, mostly trouble-free leaves, lovely orange flowers, and a manageable one or two zucchinis every week or two - enough to enjoy, not enough to get sick of, which is the usual situation with this excessively prolific vegetable.
THAI HOT PEPPERS 'Red Dragon' and 'Orange Dragon' (from seed)
I bought these seeds last year, I think; they're from the "Renee's Garden" brand. They were a mixture of orange and red hot peppers. Not too many of them sprouted, probably because the seeds were old, but I transferred a couple of each type to a pot and hoped for the best.
This plant was veeeeee-ry slow to grow, so I feared for its life for a while and assumed that it would never mature by the end of the summer - but once it got reasonably hot outside, it picked up the pace and grew to be fairly large. At least one of each type made it, too. It produced quite a lot of peppers, which are still ripening as we speak. I still have only eaten one, because upon eating the first one, I could do nothing for ten minutes but wash my mouth out with milk and wish that I could rip my tongue out and send it through the washing machine. It was possibly the hottest thing I'd ever eaten. I'm not a chili masochist, but I do like reasonably spicy stuff. I was out of my league here.
According to Wikipedia, Thai peppers tend to clock 50,000 to 100,000 Scovilles. Hahaha. Less than habanero or Scotch bonnets, more than chipotle or jalapeno. Yeah, I'd say.
Having said that, I think these would be fantastic as an ingredient in a dish, rather than attempting to eat them whole as I did, so I do intend to keep them.
CUCUMBERS (from seedlings)
The story with the cucumbers is this: In a closet in my office is a box full of seeds for gardens used in classes/summer camps. Sometimes one or two seeds would leak out of the corners of the seed packets, so eventually there was a little drift of naked seeds at the bottom of the box. One of my co-workers decided to plant them and see what they were. Since they didn't have any use for some of the results (and the leftover seeds weren't spoken for, anyway), those were up for grabs. I wound up with two cucumber seedlings, and two cilantro seedlings that didn't last long. The cucumbers did, and while the location wasn't so great - they were jammed back in the least sunny corner because it was all that was left at that point of the summer, and the vines sort of flopped every which way out of the pot - they have produced a cucumber or two every week or two, rather like the zucchini. Since Jay doesn't care for cucumbers, they're all mine, so it has been nice to whip up a salad with some dill every now and then. I also mean to try making some of those quick pickles, like the New Dumpling House puts out as appetizers. Mmmm.
That's kind of an anticlimactic ending. Oh well.