Harvest ugh..Tuesday and Update!

 It's been too long since a post. In my defense, I share a camera with an artist in school. Certainly not a photographer, with this cheap camera, but he does like to photograph his work as he's working on it. On top of that, we spend lots of our "down" time up in Pennsylvania with my in-laws, and my sister, and my last excuse is that the weather is FINALLY nice, and I just wanted to enjoy it!

Weather has been chilly in the mid-40s to 50s, but today we got a hot 80 something!  I'd like a week or two in the 70s, but I'm not complaining.

For harvests, this picture of the lettuce was the only one I could find of what I've harvested. We've had quite a bit of lettuce, and a bunch of basil.  Thursday, I anticipate harvesting all of the spinach in preparation for fresh plants, and the need to free up some of the space for things like squash.

The rest of this post is pretty picture heavy. I just wanted to have an actual document of where things are in the balcony garden right now.

  Topsy Turvy strawberry planter has been hung, and can now rotate to get sunlight.

 This poor planter has been reseeded already, and still nothing will sprout and stick around. Not sure what's going on with it, although tonight when I went out to get these pictures, I had to remove a cigarette butt and ashes from this one. The joys of having 7 floors above us, I suppose.

 My Dwarf Tophat blueberry bush is loading up with blossoms, and today was the first day I saw any leaves starting to open up.

Early Tristar strawberries are starting to recover from some of the awful cold nights we got for a while.

 Look at all of this spinach we'll get to eat! I've got a spinach and artichoke dip recipe I want to use a lot of it for. Many of the leaves are larger than my hand.

 My Fort Laramie strawberry plants in the Topsy Turvy from Henry Fields are looking nice.  I know this isn't the ideal way to grow them, but it at least will hopefully give me a handful of berries.

I made my very first 5 gallon bucket self watering container today.  I don't have all of the necessary tools in our apartment (like a SAW to cut that PVC pipe shorter), but it will work.  I followed Jeff's instructions at Our Engineered Garden for the design.

 My wintersown plants are all making their appearances, and got a day with the lid off. The jalapeno just sprouted this week, but the tomatoes and marigolds have been there for some time. These are all just back ups, but I wanted to attempt the process.

Lastly, just some sweet little lettuce seedlings. It'll be nice to have more in a month or so!

Strawberry Fever

Strawberry fever got me this weekend at Home Depot. I already ordered 25 Fort Laramie everbearing strawberry plants from Henry Fields, but couldn't resist buying a few more plants at Home Depot.  

I stopped in at a Home Depot just to see what they had in terms of seeds and plants this time of year being that I'm in a different zone now. I found their current lettuce/cabbage/broccoli/strawberry stand had some plants that were seriously hit by some frost. I asked an employee if they were marking any of the plants down because I figured I could save some of the strawberry plants, and would happily take them off of their hands for a reduced price. I was disappointed to find out that they are subcontracted through Bonnie's plants, and Home Depot has no authority to reduce the price. They said that Bonnie's will just throw them away.  

I left empty handed, disappointed, and with a new "need" for strawberry plants. The "need" grew, and I headed with the hubby to a closer Home Depot the next day.  Their plants were in excellent condition, and I reasoned that I was planning on being out of town for the "estimated delivery date" of my strawberries from Henry Fields, and wanted some back ups. I also know (as evidence of the whole cart of half dead plants at the first Home Depot) that they don't always take the greatest care of the plants at Home Depot after they've arrived. That means that the earlier I can take care of my own "backups" the better!

I brought home 10 Tristar bareroot plants, and one established Quinalt plant with dreams of luscious strawberries.

I planted 6 in new dollar store planters to add to my balcony rails and three in the terra cotta planter that I borrowed from a cousin for my tomato plant when I moved here early last year. I'll be returning it to her with these three strawberry plants as a thank you. The last one I swapped out with a lettuce seedling from the Aerogarden and planted it there.  This will be a science experiment of sorts (nothing fancy), but I also bought a topsy turvy strawberry planter while at Home Depot, so I'll plant my Henry Fields plants in that. 

Yesterday, I e-mailed the customer service at Henry Fields explaining that I'd be out of town for the estimated delivery date of my strawberry plants, and that if it was possible, I'd rather have my plants earlier than risk them sitting in a mailroom for a week.  What do you know, my estimated delivery date is now this week.  Talk about service!  All of these "back ups" for nothing.  I love strawberries though (and so does my sister in PA, who will be benefitting from this fever of mine with some plants of her own!)

Gardening Bug

My gardening bug has me again.  This season is a new zone for me, and a new (quite a bit smaller) garden in containers. I've been researching and learning a lot of things from scratch. I'm going from a supposed 5B (I always planted sooner than recommended) to 7A.  The last frost dates, however, indicate a later last frost date here in Alexandria than in St. Louis. Besides those differences, everything is in containers, and has its own microclimate being that I'm 9 stories up, and actually tucked away from much, if any, wind.

My lettuce, spinach, and green onions have all overwintered well on the balcony.  I frequently run out for a few clippings of spinach and scallions to add to my morning omelet.  I gave most of the lettuce a good trim a week or so ago to clean out the burnt leaves, but all of the plants seem to be putting out plenty of growth.

My Aerogarden is in full swing again. It's about time to harvest some lettuce! I am growing three kinds of lettuce, two basil plants, and a strawberry plant in my Aerogarden right now. I found an excellent Thai recipe for Red Coconut Curry, and it uses a lot of basil. I have never had much of a use for the basil I've grown, but the $2.49 I've been spending on a small container for this recipe meant that basil was a priority for the Aerogarden planting!

Here is a lone lettuce seedling I pulled from the Aerogarden when I bought some strawberry plants, and decided to try one out.  I couldn't bear to just trash this, so I'll eventually transplant it outside.

Planted so far, I've got radish, spinach, lettuce, and snow peas. I also grabbed a few strawberry plants from Home Depot this weekend, and I'm trying my hand at some wintersowing.  I decided that since my apartment doesn't really allow for the room to have my full light set up (nor plant many tomatoes/peppers), I'd go this route with a few varieties.  I ordered a few plants from Henry Fields, (and will have to share some of those even!) but decided back up plants never hurt.  I threw in some jalapeño, Green Zebra tomatoes, marigolds, Sweet 100 cherry tomatoes, and some saved Cherokee Purple seeds that came from a tomato I got from seed given to me by Jeff at Our Engineered Garden.   All of those seeds went into a divided gallon milk jug and a water bottle, and now they're just waiting.  We'll see how they do! I like the idea of not really having to harden the seedlings off when the time comes.

Well, this post has gotten wordier than planned, so that's all for now. 

Documentation Post.

 I took all these pictures several days ago (save a few at the end from today), and never got the chance to upload them. So here they finally are.  Completely random, but I know I'll want to look back next year, and see where the garden was this time of year, so this is more of a "documentation" post. It's incredible to me because I know how much growth I've seen even since these were taken!  We had had some "normal" temperatures this week, which shows me just how spoiled I've been. I've had to bring IN plants, something I haven't had to do for about a month!  Plants are back outside tonight though, with a low of 50, I think they're alright.

I had my first problem with rollie-pollies as we grew up calling them, pill bugs, sow bugs to others. I have never had a problem with them, but they absolutely destroyed my pepper plants! I may have about enough to not have to buy them from the store, but I may not even get off that lucky, and I planted over double of what I wanted to plant for myself!

This particular container I used to carry the plants did not have a full bottom to it, so one day I moved it when I saw several chewed up plants and they were swarming. Literally, swarming.  This container has stayed on the patio table after that incident, and they haven't seemed to sustain any additional damage, though I'm not sure many will recover. The other containers for my plants had a lip to them, and I think that's what kept them away from my others. 

New strawberry plants have taken. The old ones have fruit set already.

I looked through last year's blog, and my earliest FLOWER was April 11, this year they are already covered with growing berries!

Tomato and pepper seedlings, broccoli and peas

My broccoli is as big now as it was at the end of May last year (I got a pretty nasty freeze/snow just after planting last year)

Radishes and peas (the radishes have been incredibly mild flavored this year, and have really filled out nicely)

Alright, Granny-- you were right! Here's a carrot seedling!

Broccoli and lettuce -- I'll need to take an updated picture, broccoli plants are touching now, and we've had a full container worth of lettuce harvested since this photo. It made for two delicious salads, but I definitely forgot how long it takes to clean each individual leaf!

Tomato seedlings getting bigger! I've had some issues with what I think is nitrogen deficiency and have tried to keep them fed-- the new growth is really LIGHT green, almost yellow.

This picture shows how much my broccoli has grown since I planted it. This is an extra seedling that didn't get planted, and has pretty much stayed the same size as the plants were when I transplanted them. 

Zucchini seedling popping up in my buckets!

Radishes popping over the soil.

 One of my favorite things about early spring-- pea tendrils. I absolutely love how delicate they are, but are still intensely strong.

 Happy Birthday Heidi! She's 9 today!

Quick and easy way to gain the title "Messy Garden"-- Maple seeds  Sometimes it sounds like it's raining when the wind blows. They're almost finished falling, so it'll be time to clean them up soon!

Gardening in the Rain

My strawberry replacement plants came yesterday (All but three or four plants died from the heat and lack of water last year...) So that meant I had no choice but to do some gardening work.

I planted 25 strawberry plants, transplanted broccoli and lettuce starts, planted red onions, and did some weeding. All of this is the rain.

I'm definitely seeing green out there now! The warm weather has been lovely, but I'm definitely afraid of a late frost/freeze. It was only in the 60s today, so that rain that has now taken residence in all of my clothes has chilled me to the bone. At least I got out there with the camera!

In turtle news, all turtles have now emerged. Nadine was the slowest, and I saw her out there this morning for the first time. (she was the one who gave us fertile eggs last year, so I was rather worried about how long it has taken her to come out!)

What to do with Cabbage Loopers

I fortunately have not had to deal with any cabbage loopers until now. Last year, my plants looked like a lace doily, and I never got any broccoli from those plants.  It's nice to know that there is a place to take them when I find them though!


I spent two hours out in the garden with sprinklers and new fertilizer. I bought some new organic fertilizer and some blood meal yesterday.  Organic = stinky.  I had to breathe through my mouth for the whole process, but I had several of my paste tomatoes get blossom end rot, and it's been a while since any of my plants have been fed.  I've done a much better job with that, and keeping the plants staked this year, but it's still a hard thing for me to remember to do!

I picked a full sized zucchini and my first yellow squash today! More peas were picked, and I'm about to go plant some more green beans. I cut all but the very newest growth out of my strawberries today, because they appear done. I did this based off of a suggestion from my great uncle, so we'll see how they do. They were looking pretty sad and diseased anyway.

Harvest Monday

Thanks for hosting Harvest Monday Daphne! If you want to check out what others are harvesting, head over to Daphne's Dandelions!

I harvested this broccoli yesterday, and it was added to stir fry with a bunch of other garden vegetables for dinner for three last night. I had a few open yellow flowers, so it had to be cut. This is my first year harvesting broccoli, so I am still learning when to harvest it. Hopefully I'll know better next year!

One of the snow pea harvests

Looks like I missed one in the previous harvest from the day before!

Five more heads of lettuce: 2 Buttercrunch, 1 Little Caesar Romaine, and 2 Valerie

Strawberries that I shared with the neighbors, but grabbed a picture of before I took them over.

More strawberries and peas!

More peas!

The bag of peas is for size reference only, though we ate all of them finally yesterday.

Everything green in this meal came from the garden! And there were three of us who ate it! The zucchini babies were delicious, and perfect, and tasted no different. They were small, and had the tiniest seeds in them, but that was the only difference. This meal was a very satisfying one!

I was having a hard time remembering what I had harvested, and thought it would be a small post, but when I pulled up all of the pictures I was pleasantly surprised! This was a great garden week!

Sorry to sound redundant, but this morning I recovered another four turtle eggs! Eleanor laid 4 more last night, so that is the first time she has double clutched here to our knowledge.  Multiple clutching is very normal for box turtles, we just haven't seen it happen before. Her total for the season is now up to 9, and only 19 days apart. I guess she wasn't going to be outdone by Nadine, who laid six the night before.  We now have a total of 15 eggs inside.  I did some research last night about multiple clutching, and found some instances where the average amount of eggs per female/season was around 11.  This is the first year we've had any turtle besides Eleanor lay, but I don't know what we'd do with 44 baby turtles, not that I'm counting my turtles...