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

[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!