Recap

I've been a bit negligent about posting here, but this does not by any means reflect the state of the garden. So, I'm including some visual evidence that things have, in fact, been going well.

At the end of May, we had radishes:

And, the balcony looked like this:

Then, by early August, the balcony looked like this:

Featuring a jungle of tomato plants:

And more cucumbers than we could shake a stick at:

The cucumbers have settled down a bit in the past few weeks, but we now have a lot of delicious tomatoes. More to come in the next few days about that...

Radishes

For the first time ever, I have successfully grown radishes! I ate a few today and they were yummy. Before this, I've tried growing radishes twice before and they just never did anything. All I would end up with were a few little pea-sized, pathetic radishes. This year I got a different variety of radishes to plant (French Breakfast), so maybe that's the reason for the improvement. Nevertheless, this is an exciting development. Pictures will be forthcoming. (I was too focused on eating the radishes today to think about taking a photo.)

In My Little World...

The seedling shelf is looking like a miniature jungle.

The chives will soon have purple blooms.

It's been raining a lot and the peas are loving it.

And, I am done with school and learning how to slow down.

A Trip to Mahoney's

The weekend before last some of our car-owning friends asked us if we'd like to accompany them on a trip to Mahoney's Garden Center in Winchester. I'd heard wondrous things about the expanse of this place. And, indeed, it was a gardening mecca compared to what I usually have access to on the T.


I had a lot of fun looking at the flowers, but when it comes down to it I'm really not much of a flower-gardening type. Although flowers are really pretty, I somehow can't get inspired to put a lot of work into plants that don't produce food. I do happen to like flowers that can be eaten though (i.e., signet marigolds and nasturtiums). Nevertheless, each summer I do usually put aside two pots for non-edible flowers. One of my few purchases at Mahoney's was some vinca to put in these two flower pots.

I really do like little funky looking succulents though, which is an exception to my usual preference for edible plants. I got a couple of these at Mahoney's as well so that I can replace some of the ailing plants in my terrarium.

At this point, you may wonder why I am writing about a trip to a garden center that took place almost two weeks ago (as exciting as it was). Well, the answer is that I am really procrastinating. I am now going to return to writing a paper that has been looming over me. One more week of this business and then I'm footloose and fancy-free.

[Photos by Mr. Foliage]

The Trouble with Squirrels

I must say that don't like squirrels. I used to think they were kind of cute, but that was all before they started messing with my tomatoes. The problem started last summer, when one or more squirrels started regularly jumping from a nearby tree to our back balcony, then running over our roof to our front balcony where they subsequently wreaked havoc on our container garden. Many almost-ripe tomatoes were picked by these furry rascals, only to have just one bite taken from each of them. The remainder of the tomato would be left there, as if to taunt us. The thing is, this entire situation really wouldn't have bothered me so much if these squirrels would just eat the whole tomato rather than wasting so much. But, no, they never did that.

Last summer I had thought about buying some sort of spray at our local gardening supply to keep the squirrels away, but felt wary after I noticed that none of these sprays seemed to be organic. So, I just put up with the problem for the rest of the growing season, cursing the squirrels all the while.

This year I really want to keep the squirrels away from my tomatoes. I'm not sure yet what I'm going to do, but I want to take a route that is organic (i.e., no chemical sprays). I've had my eye on one of those big, fake plastic owls for a while now, and have thought about attaching one to our back balcony right around the spot where the squirrels usually jump over from the tree. But, I'm wondering, will a fake owl really fool these pesky squirrels?

Does anyone out there have any suggestions about how to deal with squirrels?

An Overdue Update

In the past couple of weeks, a few things have kept me from thinking about gardening. I had a visit from a good friend, took a weekend trip to Philadelphia, dealt with some messy bathroom renovations and am still in the midst of finishing my last grad school class. But, rest-assured (any of you who actually read this), the seedlings inside are really coming along and there have also been some developments in the pots outside as well.

First though, I'll precede the good updates with a little bit of disappointing news. I have finally accepted the fact that I will have no crocuses, daffodils or tulips on my balcony this spring. In the fall, I bought the bulbs and planted them in the containers outside along with some bulb food and red pepper flakes (to keep the squirrels away). But, I got lazy and never mulched. Perhaps this is why the bulbs failed, although I'm not really sure. This was my first time planting bulbs and I didn't read up on the matter very much before planting. In an attempt to get over this debacle, I took a lot of photos (like the one above) of flowers when I visited Philadelphia.

And now, the good news... While we were away in Philly, our outdoor seedlings started sprouting. I had almost given up on them and I'm now hopeful that I'll actually have peas and radishes this year. (I've never been successful with radishes before and only marginally successful with peas.)

And, the seedlings inside are getting a lot bigger. The cucumber plants are so big already that I'm not sure how I'm going to hide them from the cats for much longer. I had noticed that the edges of some of the leaves were getting kind of dark, but I think that they were actually just getting a bit too hot. I've since raised the overhead lights a bit and things seem okay.

With everything so busy lately, I'm looking forward to a few weeks from now when I'll be done with my class and will hopefully be able to focus on more gardening.

Cat Proofing

My cats, Laika and Midge, are very devoted plant killers. Together they've destroyed a ficus tree, an aloe plant, a very long ivy plant, and countless vases of flowers. Thankfully, they've never gotten sick in the process of all this destruction. This is likely because they don't usually eat the plants, they just rip them apart and trail them all over the apartment.

All of this has been very distressing to me, but I've figured out a few tactics that allow me to have a few plants that peacefully coexist with my furry friends. Long, trailing plants are out of the question unless they’re hanging from the ceiling. My one hanging ivy plant gets a haircut whenever it grows long enough for a cat to reach it. Also, I've amassed a collection of succulents, tucked quietly onto bookshelf corners and high surfaces, which don't seem to attract the attention of Laika and Midge quite so much.

As I start my seedlings each year, I have to take some precautions. Luckily, if the cats can't see the seedlings, everything seems to work out fine. Our seedlings have started sprouting at this point, and the cat-proofing is in full force.

As you can see, all I’ve done is tape some paper around a shelf and the seedlings can do their thing without any attention from the kitties.

I’ve also set up lights because we just don’t get enough natural light to keep the plants from getting very leggy. These are old desk lamps I’ve pulled out from our basement storage space, with special plant light bulbs in them.

For simplicity’s sake, I decided to keep everything on one shelf again this year, even though it’s a little crowded. Everything’s coming along really well in there. The outdoor situation is another matter though. Perhaps due to our bizarre “spring” weather, including snow and sleet, our radishes, nasturtiums, and greens have yet to show themselves.

Springing Up

Although it's still quite cold outside, today feels a bit more like spring for a couple of reasons. It's opening day at Fenway Park, and our seedlings are coming up.

Snow in April?

The good news is that my chives from last year are coming back quite nicely. The bad news is that there's a layer of snow on them. There's also a layer of snow covering the seeds we planted outdoors on Sunday and the bulbs I planted in the fall which still haven't come up. This really doesn't feel like spring.

A Beginning

The order from Seed Savers came in on Saturday. So, today we got almost all of the seeds in soil. I think we might be a little behind schedule for tomatoes and maybe a few other things, but hopefully it'll all work out. We decided against using yogurt cups to plant the seedlings in mainly because it just isn't worth it to buy yogurt at the store (instead of making it at home) just to get the containers. We bought a few of the little black plastic containers you see above, which really keeps things more organized anyway.

Inside this year we have two cat-proofable windowsills (instead of just one) set aside for seedlings. I haven't worked out the final cat-proofing plans, but will need to get that done before the delicious green seedlings show themselves. In prior years, a wall of construction paper around the shelf with the seeds on it has done the trick. We won't have to deal with that with our greens, peas, nasturtiums and radishes which we direct seeded outside.


Laika and Midge, my plant-eating friends, had an exciting time watching birds fly by the balcony today. You can almost tell how tense and excited they were from this picture.

A Seedy Update

Our Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds order just arrived! We've been collecting empty yogurt cups, and we'll soon be planting the seeds in them.

Ordering Seeds

After going through the Seed Savers and Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds catalogs, Mr. Foliage and I have made our seed selections for this year. We just submitted the order and I’m really excited.

MY SEED CHOICES:

Arugula: Sylvetta
We eat this a lot so I’m planning to have a few different containers of it and to do multiple plantings throughout the summer.
Cucumber: Early Russian
I’m trying a different cucumber variety this year because the Lemon Cukes, although tasty, have stressed me out in previous years with their powdery mildew. Baker Creek describes these as “hardy” and I’m hoping that might mean mildew-resistant.
Pea: Tom Thumb
I haven’t had much luck with peas the past two years – they just haven’t produced much. This variety looks cute so seems worth it even if I don’t end up with many peas.
Pea: Green Arrow
Seed Savers said “heavy, reliable production” in the description. That was enough to peak my curiosity.
Mini Bell Peppers: Red and Yellow
I’ve never grown bell peppers before and thought I’d start with this.
Radish: French Breakfast
I never seem to get radishes planted early enough. I thought I’d try again though and these looked interesting because they’re different than what I’ve seen in the produce section at the grocery store.
Basil: Genovese
I decided that this year I’m going to focus on growing a lot of one basil variety, rather than having too little of a bunch of different varieties (like I did last summer).
Parsley: Triple Curled
This seems like something that would be convenient to have around all summer.
Tomato: Black Plum (indeterminate)
I read about them on You Grow Girl and got interested.
Tomato: Green Sausage (determinate)
Again, Gayla at You Grow Girl wrote about them and I made a note of it.
Tomato: Yellow Pear (indeterminate)
A couple of years ago we were at the liquor store and the girl working there was giving away yellow pear tomato transplants – she said she planted way too many of them. We took one and it was go great, producing a lot of tasty little yellow tomatoes all summer. I’m excited to try growing them from seed this time.
Tomato: Principe Borghese
After picking out the above three tomato varieties, I decided I still wanted a red grape or cherry-sized tomato. I try not to go too crazy with indeterminates simply due to space constraints, so this one had to be a determinate. Baker Creek’s description said they’re good for sun-drying – sounds interesting enough to me.
Sunflower: Aztec Sun
Looks pretty, not too tall (3-4’) and attracts butterflies.
Nasturtium: Golden Emperor
I wanted at least one climbing flower this summer. I love nasturtiums because they’re pretty and the flowers are edible so I was excited to find this variety that’s supposed to climb on a trellis.
Nasturtium: Tip Top Formula Mixture
Dwarf plant, mixture of colors, similar to the old-standby I’ve successfully grown for the past two years.

MR. FOLIAGE'S SEED CHOICES:

Cilantro
Fish Peppers (hot peppers)
Tomatoes: Cherokee Purple (indeterminate)
Tomatoes: White Currant (indeterminate – large vining plant)
Tomatoes: Wapsipinicon Peach (indeterminate – fuzzy skin!)
Spinach: Bloomsdale
Carrot: Scarlet Nantes
Baby Bok Choy
Eggplant: Applegreen
Collard Greens: Georgia Southern