Gardening Update: Beans, beans, the musical fruit...

...but there is not too much tooting going on when the harvest is this small...only 15 beans!  

They were yummy.  

Hopefully the vine will yield a few more before the end of the season!  

Gardening Update: Peas

It was hardly a bountiful harvest:

Enough said.

Gardening Update: Tomato plant disaster

There were very high winds in North Vancouver yesterday.  I came home to find that 1/3 of my tomato plant snapped off at the stem.  Boo hoo.   

There were even a few teeny tiny tomatoes starting to grow on that section. 

Gardening Update: Beans

Check out my pole beans!

I am quite pleased with the trellis that I rigged up.    

I drilled a couple of holes at each end of the pot and then I rigged up a little trellis with some hemp...not the same hemp that I'm knitting with.  

Gardening Update: Fresh garden salad

Yummy Salad!

The tomatoes aren't from my garden, but the rest is. 

 

My first harvest of green leaf lettuce, swiss chard, and peppery arugula.  And a radish and some parsley to add a bit of flavour.  Mmmm.  

My First Harvest

Check out my first radish harvest!!!  I am sooo excited!  

And they taste yummy too!

Gardening Update: My garden grows

Check out the progress!

Back row pots: swiss chard, little marvel peas, and my fabulous Early Girl tomato plant.

Front row pot: Arugula & lettuce just started.  The first batch failed.

Topsy turvy: celebrity tomato - it seems to be doing well.  

And here are my radishes in the topsy turvy!

And finally, my beans and a few of my herbs.  The basil is looking a little sad...that one might have to be replanted.  

The most expensive tomatoes ever

All that I want is some juicy tomatoes off the vine.   My two tomato plants died after the cold snap a few weeks ago so I had to replant them.  I've decided to try 3 different growing methods:

Original Rona bucket.  I’m glad the plant died because I think it would have died anyway.  When I dug out all the dirt I discovered that the soil at the bottom of the bucket was soaking.  It would have drowned for sure.  I drilled some extra holes in the bucket to try to improve the drainage before replanting the new tomato plant.  

Initial observations re: upside down tomato plants – replanting a seedling in an upside down container is a heck of a lot more difficult than replanting a traditional tomato because you have to remove all of the dirt.  Hopefully I won’t have to do that too many times this season! 

Topsy Turvy.  My dad gifted me a Topsy Turvy planter so I decided to test it out compared with the Rona bucket.  I have planted the same variety of tomatoes in the Rona bucket and the Topsy Turvy (Celebrity tomatoes).  The Topsy Turvy  has several small drainage holes at the bottom (that’s how I got the idea to drill some in the Rona bucket).  The material of the Topsy Turvy is woven plastic.  I wonder if that improves the ‘breathability’ of the soil.  We’ll see how it goes.

Rona Bucket (left) & Topsy Turvy (right)

Traditional Pot.  I’ve planted one tomato plant in a traditional pot.  This won’t be a true scientific experiment, because I’ve chosen a different variety for this one - “Early Girl Tomatoes”.  I had some success with this variety last year, so decided to try it again. 

Looks can be deceiving

You'll see from my post about upholstering my patio furniture that we don't have the most scenic of views. We are on the 2nd floor of a 3 storey condo and we look out to a back alley.  So, while on first glance it doesn't seem very scenic, it does have it's pluses:

- Our unit is south east facing.  So, lots of sun for my veggies and plants.  

- We have a peak-a-boo view of the Lions Gate Bridge (ignore the other condos and hydro poles and imagine it in the distance just below where the drain pipe is coming out of the ceiling).

But the best view is if you look down from our railings.  

Not too shabby, for a back alley!

And keep in mind that these photos were taken a couple of weeks ago, 

so the view will only get better!

Seedlings

I'm trying to grow a few things from seed.  Some I will sow in pots outside, but I decided to start some lettuce and basil inside.  

I picked up a "professional greenhouse" from Rona when I was in there buying my tomato buckets.  It comes with these little peat-moss pellets that you soak in water and they expand into little pots.  Then you plant a few seeds in each one.  

I figured that it was worth a try.  Let's be honest, I don't have the greenest thumb and I want successes in my first year so I'm open to trying "gimmicky" things.   

Day 0: April 29th - 11pm.  Seeds are planted.  

Day 3 : May 2nd - 1pm

From Left to Right: Baby Green Lettuce, Siam Queen Basil, Red Sail Lettuce, Arugula

The Arugula is doing the best...and no signs of the Siam Queen.  

Day 9: May 8th - 10am

Siam Queen (basil) makes an appearance.  The rest have sprouted like crazy.  

Hmmm...when to transplant to a bigger pot?  I think I might pot them inside, and wait a few weeks before moving the pots outside, after my failed tomato experiment.  

Gardening Update: Lawsuit averted

The good news - The Crafting Widower replaced the hooks for my tomato plants so that I don't have to worry about them falling to the ground and killing somebody.  


The bad news - it has been very cold and windy in North Vancouver for the past 2 days.  My tomato plants and basil are looking very sad.  I'm not sure if they will make it. 

Gardening Update: Avoiding a "Death by tomato plant" lawsuit

The Crafting Widower is back from his business trip - so I am using his laptop to download photos I took on his camera.  Yeah!  I have been itching to post some photos of my gardening.  This qualifies for a crafting post since I was so creative with my upside-down tomato plants .  And, I'm just really excited about starting a garden.  So, without further ado, here's my upside-down tomato plant in the making:

there's a hole in my bucket dear liza, dear liza...

Crafting to camouflage the ugly Rona logo.

Pushing the tomato plant through the coconut liner.

Then I filled the bucket with dirt and hung it from the hook.

Above is the coconut basket liner that I cut apart. 

Ta-dah!

One week in - so far, so good.  The bucket has not yet plummeted 2 floors down and taken out our 70+ year old fellow resident as she works in the garden.  Phewf!  The Crafting Widower said he would check the structural integrity of the hook for me, so that we don't have to worry about a "Death by tomato plant" lawsuit.  


I also found out that my cousin-in-law (and fellow blogger), is also trying to grow tomatoes upside down in a bag she bought from Target.  We'll have to compare notes.  

There's a hole in my bucket dear Liza, dear Liza...

Actually, there are holes in 2 of my buckets...this is explained below...  

It was a gardening weekend for me, as part of my attempt to turn my balcony into our 'Urban Oasis'.  I planted some herbs (rosemary, chives, basil, cilantro and parsley) and bought some seeds for veggies -   lettuce, arugula, radishes, swiss chard, peas and pole beans.  We'll see how that goes.  I also planted a clematis in the shady corner of our balcony and I will try to coax that into growing up a trellis.  

Since we have a limited amount of space on our condo balcony, I've decided to try thinking vertically - hence the pole beans and the clamatis.  But my big experiment is that I am going to try growing some tomato plants upside down.  While I was surfing the internet a few weeks ago, I came across some sites where people talked about growing tomatoes upside down in buckets.  It might be a bit gimmicky, but I'm going to give it a go.  Basically, you get a big painting bucket (19L), cut a 2" hole in the bottom, and push the plant through so that its upside down with its root bulb at the bottom of the bucket and the leaves hang out through the hole at the bottom.  Then you fill the bucket with soil and it hangs on a hook by the bucket handle.  Apparently, you can do companion planting - so I'll try planting my lettuce and radishes at the top of the bucket (once I start the seeds).  You've gotta be creative when you have a wee balcony.  I will admit that I am slightly concerned about the strength of the rusty hook that the bucket is hanging from...will it be strong enough?  God forbid it should break off and fall to the ground...

I took some pics, but I will have to add those later once I get my camera back.