PLANTS!

[tsaiko]

Two weeks ago I started my early plants. These are the cold tolerant, frost resistant plants that will live even if it gets a bit nippy outside. Included in this list are three swiss chard plants, two bibb lettuces, and a mesclun mix. I have seedlings in all my little pots on the windowsill in my room. In about four more weeks I'll transplant all those seedlings to their pots outside on the balcony.

Swiss chard is my favorite of this group. It's heat tolerant so it'll grow all summer long, though I've been told it tastes better in cooler weather. I wouldn't know since "cooler weather" here means "kill everything with snow." Doubly so because I'm growing it in a pot to the roots get hit hard. I started with one plant last year because I'd never had it before (chard is notoriously hard to transport and tastes worse and worse the longer it is cut). I wound up starting two more plants half-way through the summer. This year I'm just going to grow three from the get go.

This weekend I'm going to start my second round of crops. These are the less cold tolerant ones and include a roma tomato, Rosa Bianca eggplant (which is purple and white striped), green onions (so we can finally have green onions when we want them and not when the store feel like providing them) and finally curly leaf kale. Technically I should have started the kale two weeks ago because it's more of a cold weather plant, but we just got the seeds for it today. miome really wanted some though, so I'm hoping we get some good leaves off of it before it dies off from heat.

I can't wait to get everything up and running this year. Our balcony is perfect for growing plants and I love being able to walk outside and getting fresh produce. If I'm lucky, there won't be a severe drought this year and my tomato will do better and give more fruit. I'm also going to do the water bottle method of watering (i.e. bury a water bottle in the soil when I plant it and fill that up every morning). Hopefully this will keep the plant more evenly watered.

Be prepared for pictures when things start going. I really want to show off the eggplant. From what I understand it'll be gorgeous when it blooms and then again when it starts bearing fruit.

Comments

[mechante-fille.livejournal.com]

Yay, plants! Good for you. I can't wait to see the pics. ^_^ Is the Rosa Bianca like the Fairy Tale, or is it regular size?

Good luck with all your produce plans!^_^

[tsaiko.livejournal.com]

The site I looked at puts them at about the same size (2 to 2 1/2 feet). The fruit are very different though. Rosa Bianca has globe shaped fruit and Fairy Tale has long fruit. Which I like because I plan on scooping out the insides, stuffing the eggplants, and then baking them.

Thank you!

[kayay.livejournal.com]

Rosa Bianca and Fairy Tale make me think of something from a Grimm story.

How large is your balcony? I've toyed with the idea of growing more than just herbs on mine, but add the grill and my bike currently sitting against the wall, and I don't know where I'd put everything. ,_, I saw this hanging tomato thing before that I drooled over.

[tsaiko.livejournal.com]

The balcony is about 4 x 12 feet (I'm guessing because our back porch light is out and it's dark). It's fairly large for a balcony. The only thing on it will be my plants (because the bikes are stored in my room -_-). You'd be amazed at the extent of what you can grow in small containers, hanging baskets, or window boxes attached to the railings. The only two big pots I'll have this year care for the tomato and eggplant. The rest can all be grown in 12" pots or even smaller.

I would absolutely love to have a hanging tomato plant. There's just no where to hang it. ^^;

[zombiebanana.livejournal.com]

Oooh, we started our plants, too. :D Although we're growing straight from seeds instead of buying pre-made transplants. We've got corn, cucumber, zucchini, multi-colored carrots, leaf lettuce, radishes and orange watermelons. We bought a little greenhouse tray that comes with little discs of dehydrated peat in little mesh-net bags, and you just add water to rehydrate, plant the seeds, wait a week or two and they're ready for transplant. We've also got green onions already planted. :3

Our cucumbers, zucchini and radishes are all ready to go, and about half of the watermelon are ready. I seeded 18 little peat plots with corn, though, and for some reason they seem to be growing mold...? O_o About 3 have sprouted and got fairly tall now, though. A couple others have sprouted but aren't very big. A lot of them have sprouted roots but not shoots, and the roots are growing together with other peat patches. D: I've had to separate 3 of them now.

Eee, gardening is getting me excited. e_e This is the first place we've had that's had a good spot for a garden. The soil is nice and sandy, too. :3 The flowers we've planted are already going crazy. I can't wait to see our vegetables. :D

[tsaiko.livejournal.com]

I'm growing straight from seeds in small seed pots. I won't even have to disturb the root system: just pop the suckers in and the seed pots will degrade as the roots grow. The only reason I mentioned seedlings is because the seeds have already sprouted. All the packets say it'll be two weeks from planting to sprouting, but I average about 4-5 days (except for parsley which takes FOREVER to sprout).

It I remember right corn is one of those tricky ones for growing from seed. Did you try soaking the seeds overnight in water before putting it on the peat patches? That might help.

It is exciting to grow a garden! I'm thrilled I can do it on the balcony. I can't wait till I have an actual house to grow a big garden. ^^

[zombiebanana.livejournal.com]

Yeah, you don't have to disturb the root system with our little pods. :3 They just grow straight out the bottom of the mesh bag, and by the time they're doing that it's time to plant them anyway. Except for the corn, which is being a bitch. :< All of the roots are growing out the sides instead of the bottoms. It's very strange. Our seeds seem to be sprouting very quickly, too, except for the carrots, which seem to take a bit longer than everything else to get started. Those packets lie! D:<

No, I didn't even know you should do that. D: Maybe it would have helped. I've always just thought you throw the seeds in the ground, honestly. xD I know you can do that with watermelons...

This year we're just starting small, but next year we might have a mighty garden in our back yard. xD The landlady tore down a lot of old trees in the back yard and just left them laying there in a pile by the woods, and almost all of the back yard is exposed dirt. Something must be done about this, and a garden is one possible answer. :3 I'd really like to grow red potatoes, but I figure we can do that next year and just do smaller stuff this time.