In the garden

Remember this from previous post:

Here is the updated picture:

The smaller cutting didn't take. But when I watered, the perlite collapsed and exposed ROOTS! If you look closely, the leaves are bigger. Please continue to grow little cutting. It has been indoors for about 2 weeks now, out of an abundance of precaution.

In the garden

These are a welcome sight: the hyacinths are blooming!

Sunny Sunday

First, Happy Birthday to Tom's mom, Laurie and her dad, Grandpa Gass. It was so nice to spend time with you in Alaska. Isn't it neat when a child and parent share a birthday (my mom and sister have the same birthday). While we're on the topic of birthdays, happy (belated) birthday to my dad. We were thinking of you all the way from Alaska!

We were glad to come back and see that our garden hadn't completely died. Yes there were some casualties. I spend a chunk of yesterday pruning the plants, removing dead ones, and cleaning the balcony. Here are updated pictures:

Two of our pepper plants, Tall one with the hot banana peppers, other one has jalapeno peppers

 Our other two pepper plants, both jalapeno peppers

This tomato plant has decided that the roof is its territory. We are waiting on about four clusters

 Nice surprise when we came back from our trip!

Marigolds - we were worried that it was on its last leg, but were surprised by more blooms when we came back

 Yum! Waiting a few more days before these are harvested

Our mint has been very prolific, we have plans to make a mint infused vodka and a coconut mint chutney, a Mauritian favorite.

A new addition to our garden - even though it's in our kitchen. I have been craving basil pesto and saw this basil plant at the store. An impulse buy that I hope will pay off :)














Okay, now here is the link to the Alaska pictures :)

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10101612549839225.3095043.23413201&type=1&l=4d059bed6d

Sunny Sunday

Our plants, well all but one, are doing great. I've taken up pruning a lot of our flower plants to encourage new sprouts. All our tomato plants look healthy. We have four tomato containers, but only three tomatoes so far. They are almost ready to harvest (disclaimer, picture from about 10 days ago; these tomatoes are now red):

We have about five pepper plants (two containers) with a lot of flowers on them but no peppers yet. 

The Lowes rescue plants are also doing well. The marigolds have rebounded well, so have the begonias and petunias.

The not so good: our morning glory plant is covered in aphids and the Neem oil spray isn't helping. As of today, the aphids were contained to just that one plant. The mixed wild flowers pot isn't doing much of anything. There are barely any flowers in the pot.
And finally, we had some (a lot of) mushrooms come up in one of our pots. Tom identified it as a member of the Amanita genus; what can I say, he's really smart like that. In any case, these are toxic. We have been removing them and their surrounding dirt. These can have caps of about 5 inches in diameter. We haven't used the parsley or chives from that pot, but if we do, they will be washed several times.

I may be wrong here, but I think they came up following a change in watering schedule. The morning is so hectic that I have started watering the plants in the evening. At night the soil stays moist and is a perfect environment for mushrooms to thrive. That's just my theory. I haven't changed the watering schedule, mostly because this past week has been a bit busier than others. My friend and co-worker went on vacation on Wednesday, and I was put on dog feeding and playing duty. Also, the new gadget inspired a lot of crafting.
We'll see what happens in the garden this week. We're hoping for peppers and no mushrooms :)

Sunny Sunday

Sunny Sunday is back! But first off, Happy Easter!

Spring has sprung (although it's a bit warm for my taste)! We planted a few seeds last month, and hope that they will continue to do well. Phlox and lavender didn't fare well. I may try again soon. Here are a few pictures. This year I DIYed some planter labels to that I would remember what I planted. We also started jalapenos, tomatoes, phlox, and marigold inside. They were all doing well, so today I moved them outside (and transplanted and rearranged).

Morning Glory

Mixed pot of Zinnia, Johny Jump Up and Wild Flowers

The Oak tree that really wants to be

Lettuce Mix

Ruby Swiss Chard

Strawberry and mint from last year

Mixed pot of Chives and Parsley (from last year), now also with Cilantro

 

 Our two barrels are finally ready. We chose to just water seal them and drill a few holes at the bottom. These will eventually contain flowers. We didn't want to take the risk of growing produce in a chemically treated planter.

Garden recap

In the garden, I did some rearranging last week to consolidate. The gladiolus never produced blooms so to the trash they went.The lettuce from seeds never progressed more than 4-5 leaves and they have been discarded as well. After our aphid problem earlier this year, I was very skeptical about our peppers (hence I haven't shared any of my plants this year :( ). I found Hannah's shop, it's about 20 minutes out of town, and remembered that they had neem oil. After two applications about 3 months ago, I haven't seen another aphid. Anyway, as of today, we have 9 jalapeno peppers on the plants, plus plenty more flowers. Tom and I have talked about making our own pickled jalapenos, or even some form of hot sauce. Maybe Xmas gifts? We have yet to try them out and see how hot they are. A mysterious plant (I lost the tag while transplanting) turned out to be bell pepper. We have a small pepper on that plant right now, and I'm watching it very closely. I still have a mysterious flowery plant, no flowers on it yet. We had our first marigold flowers. I'm trying to rehabilitate the marigolds that almost died while we were in Boston. The petunias were doing great, until my rearranging and some of them are not doing too well. I'm hoping that I can still save them. I'm watching the Zinia very closely and giving it some TLC. It has gone to almost dead to producing two flowers so far. I pruned the dahlias. After a few storms the top branches looked pretty beat up, and there were some new branches trying to push through at the bottom. Only time will tell how the plants will change over the next weeks.

Garden Update

The balcony garden was driving me crazy ever since we had to put the tarps down. The tarps are wrinkly and the wood floor is uneven, and contribute to water pooling. Runoff water would run down to a part of the tarp and pool in different areas of the balcony instead of running off the shingles like it was supposed to. Even in the high heat the water would not evaporate, and when it did, it would leave a yucky crust. Enough with the whining.
On Saturday afternoon, I finally decided to re-arrange and Tom helped me devise a system to drain the water. The system is not completely successful, but at least the pools are contained in one area. By the time we were done, we were both dripping sweat, and I had some early signs of heat sickness (we're having an awful summer mid 90s everyday - did I mention that I hate southern summers?). While we now have a more defined seating area, we aren't going on the balcony except to water the plants.

The plants: the cilantro didn't make it. The aphids are still feasting on the peppers, but they haven't stopped the peppers from flowering. The marigolds are doing well, but the gladiolus don't seem very happy. I picked the last strawberries and there are no signs of other flowers on the plant. The lettuces are hanging in there, trying to survive the heat.

Sunny Sunday

Good news: Over the past week, one dahlia bloomed. It's gorgeous! And the strawberries are flowering!










Bad news: Aphids! On the lettuces, peppers, and the bulbs! They were in quarantine, and had been sprayed but in the end we decided to throw them away, dirt and all.

Garden Day 15

Everyone's still doing well. The muscari flowers are coming up! I never worked with these flowers before and was worried that I would have two pots of grass for the entire spring.
Tom chipped in and seeded Morning Glories. He also split the lettuce heads to bigger pots. No dahlias yet. The lettuce seeds have started to sprout. All but two of the greenhouse seeds came up already. A complete review to follow. We had a second strawberry flower, but no fruits yet :(

Morning Glories

Muscari!

Garden Day 7

Day 7: Everyone seems to be doing well - the lettuce is happy, and the cilantro and lettuce seeds are germinating. There is one white freesia, and the muscari are starting to bloom. No tulip flowers yet. The gladiolus have really shot up and the dahlia keeps growing, growing, and growing. There was one strawberry flower, but the wind got to it on Thursday night before we could pollinate it. One of the concerns for the balcony is the lack of pollinators (bees etc...), and thus we'll have to do it. Hopefully the bright flowers will help.

Bedroom floor/Greenhouse update: One of the little pods was moldy and I tossed it out. One pod germinated so quickly that its leaves were being restrained by the dome. It is now outside. The jalapeno peppers are sprouting.

Gardening

I am starting a new segment on gardening. The plants that were on my bedroom floor have been moved outside. After a trip to Home Depot on Saturday, and a couple of hours on the balcony this happened:

I also got this greenhouse system and hoping for the best and seeded:
Echinacea
Bell Peppers
Eggplant
Spinach
Spearmint

And today, Melissa sent green onion and leek seeds.

Will update with pictures soon!

Container gardening

I love my balcony - it was fun to have it over the summer, even though it seemed that the tomato plants were taking over. In October, I had a gardening party, and my girlfriends and I planted bulbs - tulips, freesias, and hyacinths. Fast forward a few months, it gets colder. Mr. Squirrel decides to collect the tulip bulbs and redistribute them to the other pots. So for now, there's a new meaning to container gardening: my bedroom floor. The tulips in the back left pot are blooming!