Relaxation through gardening

Start of Season #2

2011-03-15T12:48:00.003+01:00

I'm watching the tulips grow. Chili peppers and tomatoes are, hopefully, getting ready to sprout. I'm planting salad and spinach this week.

Yay for Spring! :)

Season End & Rreview

2010-10-10T17:13:00.003+02:00

I picked the last, green tomatoes today. There are some flowers still doing well in my "garden", and the strawberry plant seems to be going wild (one red strawberry and 5 more in different shades of green). But considering the fact that morning temperatures are hovering a little above zero degrees Celsius, I think it may be time for some rest. :) (I'm lazy and decided against trying to do something with late-season crops. :P)

During the season, I was diligent about writing down everything I harvested. This is the final result:

	planted:	harvested:
chili	2	13
peas	4	23
tomatoes	4	65
onions	12	0
lettuce	5	4
carrots	18	14
radish	21	4

Chili plants did very well. I harvested 3 Thai Bird's Eye chilis and 10 Mirasol chilis. I gave a few Mirasol pods to some friends and they said they're perfect, really tasty and at just the right level of spiciness. Plus they look very nice, better than my decorative plants! I'll definitely be planting more chili next year!

Peas were great! I had only 4 pea plants but they produced a lot of pea pods. More peas next year!

Tomatoes were also doing well. One of the plants was small and scraggly and managed to produce only 3 tomatoes, but the other three were doing much better. I'm planting more tomatoes next year.

Onions were a total disappointment. Considering that I don't even like eating them, I think I won't be trying to grow them again.

Lettuce was so-so. The summer heat started too soon, so it didn't have much of a chance. I'll try again.

Carrots were another disappointment. They were small and not all that tasty, even though I spent two months constantly caring about them. No more growing carrots. :P

Radishes were my first try and they didn't turn out very well (or at all). But I'll try again.

In summary: Next year there won't be any onions or carrots, but there will be more tomatoes, chili and peas. :)

I also decided to make some kind of rain collector, because I've discovered that one drop of rain is worth more to my plants than 1 liter of tap water!

Chili Action!

2010-08-31T20:29:00.006+02:00

I picked the last Bird's Eye chili today and harvested the seeds. There's a lot of them! If anybody wants to grow Bird's Eye next year, let me know, I'll give you the seeds as soon as they're dry.

I coaxed my boyfriend into tasting the chili, because I didn't want to just throw it away after cutting out the seeds. This is how the taste test went:

First bite: (crunch crunch) "Eh, it's just pepper, maybe just a little spicy."

Second bite: (crunch ... crunch ... pause) "Aaaaaaaaaargh, f*ck, f*ck, it's hot, what do I do, aaaaargh, help!"

:D

I'm counting this as another gardening success. ;)

End of Summer

2010-08-29T15:25:00.007+02:00

I've been enjoying my garden this month. Everything suddenly started growing. I'm picking tomatoes every couple of days.

Tomato harvest!

These are going to be ready for picking in a few days.

I picked two Thai Bird's Eye chilis and hung them up to dry. I'm going to leave the third one on the plant for a few more days, to get seeds from it.

Mirasol chili is looking good! I'll be harvesting soon.

The carrots were looking ok, until I pulled them out:

The biggest carrot is the size of my finger! Not very satisfying. I guess they didn't like the climate or something. They had 4 months to grow!! Maybe I had seeds for baby carrots instead of normal carrots. :P Well, no carrots next year - too much work and not enough carrots.

At least the flowers are doing well!

I have a lot of basil that I don't think is going to like the low temperatures we're now getting. I think I'm going to make pesto to make use of it.

Red!

2010-08-09T12:07:00.005+02:00

I guess the best way to make your plants prosper is to go away from them for a while... After a week of being away from home, chili and tomatoes went from this:

to this!

I'm researching chili recipes now. :)

Disaster!

2010-07-25T10:42:00.004+02:00

There was a storm last night with lots of wind. The wind knocked over one of the flower pots on the terrace above us. By a weird coincidence, it landed right on one of my tomatoes. :( The plant itself may survive, but baby tomatoes that were growing on it won't.

The damage:

The culprit:

Definitely Summer!

2010-07-15T20:07:00.003+02:00

It's hoooooot... I'm too tired to do anything most of the time. I water my garden in the mornings, before the heat. Then I close up all the windows and barricade myself inside until dark.

But at least my chilis like it. :)

Mirasol, pointing up at the sun, like the name implies.

Bird's Eye - I think it's changing color, slowly becoming less green and more yellow!

First tomatoes growing! These are on my "monster tomato", the one that's taller than me.

Strawberries! There weren't many of them in Spring, so I'm hoping for a more bountiful harvest this time.

I harvested first lettuce today and the first carrot the day before yesterday. It's too hot for lettuce, I should've harvested it earlier. The carrots on the other hand need a bit more time, the one I dug out was quite slim. :)

Beginning of Summer

2010-07-01T19:26:00.007+02:00

It's very very hot here. Finally. My tomatoes are at least a month behind schedule. And my lettuce is now suffering because of the heat. But the chilis are coming along nicely! Here's a photo update of my garden:

The monster tomato - it's taller than me!

Mirasol chili, starting to bloom.

Lettuce... not doing too well in the summer heat. I've been covering it with a shade cloth, it seems to help somewhat.

The other two tomatoes, non-monster ones.

Carrots...

My mum's mini-margaritas...

Tagetes finally showing some development!

Celosia - I like them. :)

Woot! My little Bird's Eye chilis are growing! :D

End of Peas

2010-06-20T17:03:00.004+02:00

My pea plants weren't making any new flowers, so I think it's safe to say that the pea season is finished. I harvested the last pea pods and then dug out the plants.

All in all, I harvested 23 pods from 4 plants. I think that's a good price-performance ratio. :) The peas were delicious and the plants looked nice in the garden. It was a win-win situation. I'll definitely plant more peas next year!

My chili plant bloomed two days ago. I can't wait for the peppers to start forming!

(PS. It's raining again, so no photos.)

More Pea Love!

2010-06-09T17:57:00.003+02:00

I harvested 5 more pea pods today! I ate all the peas by myself, no sharing. ;) Mmmmm, delicious. :)

I got some flowers (mini margaritas) and parsley from my Mum, so I transplanted them into my garden. I'd have no parsley otherwise, because mine seems to be giving up. :/

Also, I need to accept the fact that I may not have any tomatoes this year. Even the new tomato plants look like they'll just fade away. Maybe the soil is not right for them.

Pea Love

2010-06-04T16:41:00.003+02:00

I love peas. That's why I am very happy to report that I harvested and ate the first peas from my garden today. :)

First harvest!

2010-05-30T19:01:00.008+02:00

Ok, ok, I'm exaggerating somewhat... I pulled out one radish to see if it's edible. Yes, it is! But they need at least another week to at least resemble normal-sized radishes.

During the weekend, I planted two flowers - gazania and celosia - and one of my chili plants. I think it's Bird's Eye chili.

(You can see the chili and celosia behind it.)

My peas are growing nicely... Lots of pea pods all around.

This was the first pea pod to grow - it's getting bigger every day!

And just because I really like this photo... Pea flowers in the rain. :)

Two steps forward, one step back

2010-05-24T18:50:00.005+02:00

It's been a month, and my vegetables hardly made any progress. Only peas are growing, everything else seems to be exactly the same size as in April. And onions look even worse than in April!

Oh well... I'll put up the photos, so I can compare everything again in June.

(And yes, there are still some cup fungi around. But I'm not worried about them anymore.)

Carrots...

Lettuce...

Tomatoes...

Peas!

The first pea pod!!! Yay!

Parsley and basil... not doing too well.

Onions... (Update: I pulled them all out a few days after taking this photo, because it was hopeless.)

Radishes...

Strawberries! Forest strawberry (lower) and "domestic" strawberry (upper). Forest strawberry has been going crazy with flowers for the last month or so.

Alien Invasion

2010-04-25T14:46:00.006+02:00

I almost freaked out this week. Suddenly, weird little bubbles started growing in my garden! I was terrified even thinking about them, because what if they are some awful parasites or if something poisonous is growing in my garden?

But after consulting several experts (thank God for online forums!), it turns out they're just cup fungi growing on un-composted compost that I mixed into the soil. They still give me the creeps (I nicknamed them "alien spawn"), but at least now I know that they're harmless. And that I won't have to burn my garden to the ground and run away.

I won't be posting any pictures of them because I'd rather forget all about them if at all possible... So here's a picture of my tulips instead!

Yay! My tulips are flowering!

I gave up on my salad because even after more than 1 month, there are still no signs of anything growing where I planted the seeds. So I bought some seedlings instead and planted them.

I also bought and planted some basil next to my parsley, for a herb square.

Yay! Everything is growing!

2010-04-14T13:38:00.005+02:00

Well, not really everything, because some of my tomato seedlings died and lettuce still hasn't come out... But all things considered, things are looking fine!

Yay, radishes!

Peas are very active! One corner is empty because the seed didn't germinate. I'll put in a new seed and see what happens.

Onions are looking nice.

Tulips are much bigger than 3 weeks ago.

Strawberries are already flowering, wow!

Preparing the containers, part 3

2010-03-23T12:35:00.006+01:00

During the weekend, I cleared up the second container and filled it with something like Mel's Mix. (I ran out of peat moss and vermiculite, so it's more than 50% compost.) I planned on filling it with flowers, but I'm getting greedy and thinking about more vegetables to plant, so I'm running out of space for flowers!

I'm worried about not having enough flowers, because last year there weren't any bees around, so I had to manually pollinate all my veggies. (This led to a running joke from my boyfriend that I'm cheating on him with strawberries. ;)) I hope our terrace will be more interesting to bees this year.

I planted lettuce and parsley. I first planned on tucking the parsley somewhere in between other plants, but then I felt very generous and planted it in a square of its own. I just couldn't visualize parsley in between my tulips! I'm going to plant a few onions, too - they're already sprouting in the kitchen, I might as well put them in the soil, as they're not edible anyway, and maybe they'll grow.

The weather is getting warmer, but there are still little piles of snow hanging around. I used weather data for the last 10 years to determine the likely date of the last spring frost and calculated planting times from that. I hope my calculations weren't too far off!

Both containers are all tidied up now!

Tulips and hyacinths are coming out!

First outside planting!

2010-03-19T17:33:00.005+01:00

I planted peas today - 4 holes in one square, 2 seeds in each, 8 seeds alltogether. I hope something comes out! :)

Hyacinths and tulips are sloooowly coming out. I can't wait to enjoy their smell and their colors!

I've started digging up the second container. There are many more roots and weeds than in the first one. I'm getting a bit desperate, because it looks like I'll never get rid of all those weeds. :( But I'll keep on plugging away. :P

I discovered ants are also awake and bustling. :/ I don't like them, but I hope they're not going to do any damage to my plants. I did some googling and they're only a problem when there are aphids around. We'll see how it goes.

I used the Gardener's Supply Kitchen Garden Planner to visualize my "garden". Here's what it's going to look like:

(Except I think I'll put the chili in a separate container.)

I also found some more very helpful tools, Garden Planner Spreadsheet and How-much-to-plant Spreadsheet. Highly recommended!

Preparing the containers, part 2

2010-03-14T21:19:00.004+01:00

Today I dug out the last remaining lumps of soil from one of the containers. There was an unbelievable amount of roots in that container! It was like a million-tentacled monster living in there.

I spent the afternoon mixing vermiculite, peat and two kinds of compost. (Mel recommends getting 5 kinds, but I hope this'll do, because it was hard to find compost of any kind!) I made about 120 liters of "Mel's Mix" and filled the container with it. I watered it, added some dividers to mark the square foot boxes and now I'm waiting for the weather to improve so I can finally plant something! :)

Rembember those "before" pictures? I think there's some difference there. ;)

First signs of green!

2010-03-07T21:13:00.002+01:00

I can see my chili pepper seeds have sprouted - they don't have leaves yet, they're not even above ground yet, but I can see the stem coming out of the seed. Woot!

My begonia is flowering again. I received a new plant, Kalanchoe, as a gift today. As soon as outside temperatures rise above 10-15 C (meaning, somewhere in late April, sigh...), I'll transplant both of them, begonia and kalanchoe, to the flower container outside.

Preparing the containers

2010-02-27T19:59:00.007+01:00

I'm using concrete containers as my SFG, but they are filled with weeds and shrubs and unkept flowers. Or at least they were, until this afternoon!

We dug around for two hours, pulling out roots and flowers and cutting up shrubs and then taking everything to the trash can (for biodegradable trash!).

Here are some pictures...

Before:

Both containers

First container - My future veggie garden

And after:

First planting!

2010-02-27T10:35:00.003+01:00

I planted my chili seeds today. Of course I made all the possible mistakes in the process. ;) Like forgetting to make drainage holes in the container, or putting the seeds 1-2 cm deep instead of 1-2 mm deep as it said on the package! Ah well, I tried to fix mistakes as well as I could. I hope something comes out of the ground anyway. :)

Too coarse?

2010-02-25T18:28:00.002+01:00

I've taken a look at the bag of vermiculite I prepared for making Mel's Mix. Now I'm worried that it's too coarse, that the pieces are too big. Can anyone tell me if it's ok?

The Plan

2010-02-22T18:05:00.003+01:00

I drew up a plan based on last frost dates from the last few years. I added an extra week just to make sure. I also looked up lunar calendar info to see the best dates for my planting (hey, I need all the luck I can get!). I'm going to plant tomatoes, chili peppers, peas, carrots and lettuce. So here's the plan:

-7 weeks - 27.2. am, 28.2. pm - plant peppers inside
-5 weeks - 19.3., 20.3. am - plant peas outside, tomatoes inside
-4 weeks - 21.3. pm, 25.3., 26.3. am - lettuce outside
-3 weeks - 29., 30., 31.3. - carrots outside
week 0 - 15.4., 16.4., 23.4. - transplant tomatoes
week 2 - 2.5. pm, 3.5. am, 4.5., 12.5., 13.5. - transplant peppers

Waiting for the sun

2010-02-08T17:37:00.001+01:00

It's the beginning of February and I can't wait for Spring to come. I read the "Square Foot Gardening" book and made notes. I planned and designed my "square foot" garden. I bought the seeds.

But I can't actually make the garden until the snow thaws.

You see, right now I have some big concrete containers on the terrace, which are filled with shrubs and flowers gone wild. I need to dig them out, take out the top layer of soil, put in "Mel's mix" (compost + peat moss + vermiculite) and then plant my seeds. But it's all covered with a half meter of snow, so I'm not very enthusiastic about going out there and digging things out.

I'm telling myself that I still have at least three weeks before I actually have to plant anything, but I'll be away most of the next two weeks... I'll have to really get cranking when I get back!

In the meantime, I've planted some tulips (in December) and hyacinths (a few days ago) in a smaller container on the terrace. I can't wait for the flowers to bloom!