What I've learned so far this year re: gardening
Every year my balcony container garden gets more ambitious, as I learn more about gardening.
1. Don't use topsoil as part of the potting mix for container gardens. It's meant for traditional gardens. All it does for containers is make the containers really heavy and make the soil dense, which makes it more difficult for air to reach the roots.
2. Contrary to what the lady at the garden store says, fish emulsion is NOT "good for everything", and you should NOT "use it on everything" when what you're primarily growing is veggies. Fish emulsion is mostly nitrogen. Nitrogen builds leaves. If you use only fish emulsion, you're going to get veggie plants with lots of lovely leaves, and very few fruit-bearing flowers. Flowering veggie plants need phosphorus, which is what contributes to flower growth. Tomato feed is good for this. So use fish emulsion on things like herbs, where you want lots of leaves; use tomato feed on plants where you need flowers. Alternate the applications of tomato feed or fish emulsion with a good complete fertilizer so it doesn't get all out-of-whack in any of the pots.
3. Look up the depth of soil needed for the various plants. That way you can reserve deep pots for the plants that send down deep roots, and use more shallow pots for the ones that don't need as much depth.
4. Hand-pollinate. Using a q-tip or little paintbrush, go from flower to flower on the veggie plant, tickling the stamens with the end of the qtip, then going on to the next flower and repeating the process. I can't believe how much this one little thing has increased my veggie and fruit yield this summer (as versus the last three years).
5. Crushed eggshells and powdered milk, sprinkled directly on the soil or dissolved in the water, helps to avoid blossom end rot (those nasty black spots on tomatoes and peppers). Consistent watering is the other big key here.
6. Don't overwater. Overwatering will kill a plant too. My poor raspberry plant can attest to this (RIP, valiant little heritage raspberry plant).
7. Sugar-snap peas are a cooler-weather crop, not a warm-weather crop.
8. You can put a lot more plants into one container than you thought you could. If there's empty places in a container, sprinkle a couple of herb seeds. (The exception to this are plants that sprawl a lot.)
9. Cucumbers and squash are climbing plants! Who knew? I was pretty startled to see tendrils reaching out from the plants. I promptly provided them with trellises and they're now growing up, up, up. So: only plant cucumbers and squash in containers that can be provided with a sturdy climbing support.
10. Plant determinate tomato varieties rather than indeterminate. Indeterminate tomato plants get much bigger; determinate is better for pots.
11. The leaves on zucchini and squash plants are REALLY BIG!
12. Cross-pollinating a red bell pepper flower and a yellow bell pepper flower will, sadly, not produce an orange bell pepper.
13. There are many different kinds of basil beyond just the standard Genovese. Experiment with other kinds too, because there's some pretty neat types out there.
14. Don't use powdered fertilizer in pots. This will burn the plants. Instead, dissolve the fertilizer in water first (1/2 cup fertilizer to each quart of water - this is a "base solution"). This can be difficult because there's always some fertilizer that just won't dissolve no matter what you do, so if you can bypass this step by buying liquid fertilizer instead, do so. If you're using the powdered fertilizer, after you've made your base solution, you add 1/2 tbsp of base solution to every quart of water, and that's what you use to water your plants. Don't use the base solution to water the plants, since it's too strong.
15. Watering plants with powdery mildew with a solution of milk and water actually does work. I don't know how or why it works, but it does.
16. Home-grown strawberries are the BEST STRAWBERRIES EVER.
1. Don't use topsoil as part of the potting mix for container gardens. It's meant for traditional gardens. All it does for containers is make the containers really heavy and make the soil dense, which makes it more difficult for air to reach the roots.
2. Contrary to what the lady at the garden store says, fish emulsion is NOT "good for everything", and you should NOT "use it on everything" when what you're primarily growing is veggies. Fish emulsion is mostly nitrogen. Nitrogen builds leaves. If you use only fish emulsion, you're going to get veggie plants with lots of lovely leaves, and very few fruit-bearing flowers. Flowering veggie plants need phosphorus, which is what contributes to flower growth. Tomato feed is good for this. So use fish emulsion on things like herbs, where you want lots of leaves; use tomato feed on plants where you need flowers. Alternate the applications of tomato feed or fish emulsion with a good complete fertilizer so it doesn't get all out-of-whack in any of the pots.
3. Look up the depth of soil needed for the various plants. That way you can reserve deep pots for the plants that send down deep roots, and use more shallow pots for the ones that don't need as much depth.
4. Hand-pollinate. Using a q-tip or little paintbrush, go from flower to flower on the veggie plant, tickling the stamens with the end of the qtip, then going on to the next flower and repeating the process. I can't believe how much this one little thing has increased my veggie and fruit yield this summer (as versus the last three years).
5. Crushed eggshells and powdered milk, sprinkled directly on the soil or dissolved in the water, helps to avoid blossom end rot (those nasty black spots on tomatoes and peppers). Consistent watering is the other big key here.
6. Don't overwater. Overwatering will kill a plant too. My poor raspberry plant can attest to this (RIP, valiant little heritage raspberry plant).
7. Sugar-snap peas are a cooler-weather crop, not a warm-weather crop.
8. You can put a lot more plants into one container than you thought you could. If there's empty places in a container, sprinkle a couple of herb seeds. (The exception to this are plants that sprawl a lot.)
9. Cucumbers and squash are climbing plants! Who knew? I was pretty startled to see tendrils reaching out from the plants. I promptly provided them with trellises and they're now growing up, up, up. So: only plant cucumbers and squash in containers that can be provided with a sturdy climbing support.
10. Plant determinate tomato varieties rather than indeterminate. Indeterminate tomato plants get much bigger; determinate is better for pots.
11. The leaves on zucchini and squash plants are REALLY BIG!
12. Cross-pollinating a red bell pepper flower and a yellow bell pepper flower will, sadly, not produce an orange bell pepper.
13. There are many different kinds of basil beyond just the standard Genovese. Experiment with other kinds too, because there's some pretty neat types out there.
14. Don't use powdered fertilizer in pots. This will burn the plants. Instead, dissolve the fertilizer in water first (1/2 cup fertilizer to each quart of water - this is a "base solution"). This can be difficult because there's always some fertilizer that just won't dissolve no matter what you do, so if you can bypass this step by buying liquid fertilizer instead, do so. If you're using the powdered fertilizer, after you've made your base solution, you add 1/2 tbsp of base solution to every quart of water, and that's what you use to water your plants. Don't use the base solution to water the plants, since it's too strong.
15. Watering plants with powdery mildew with a solution of milk and water actually does work. I don't know how or why it works, but it does.
16. Home-grown strawberries are the BEST STRAWBERRIES EVER.