Snow Day

I saw the last post was about the patio being green. Well not anymore. Here are some pictures of our blizzard. We're pretty sure its around 2 feet, Leesburg got more snow that the surrounding area which broke a 1932 record for December. Click on the picture to make it larger. The patio pictures are from earlier today, there is a much thicker layer on everything now.

The Patio is Still Green

The peas are about a foot tall now and are growing peas. There is some mildew and I should probably spray for that again, but it isn't nearly as bad this time perhaps partly because of how quickly they grew. Here are some of the more recent pictures.

All That Rot

The peas are getting ready to flower. I noticed a couple of the leaves had spots on them and a couple have wilted and fallen off. Closer inspection revealed what I expected, mildew again. So the less humid fall wasn't a complete answer to the mildew problem, but maybe it will at least help. I made an anti-mildew solution from a recipe I found on About.com and sprayed it on everything that was having a mildew problem. I also read that adding a little cornmeal to the soil can help with fungal problems so I'm going to try that next year in the soil for the fungus prone plants.

I have successfully rehabilitated the hybiscus plant I "rescued." It is just about to start blooming again. That will be a nice reward before it goes dormant for the winter. I'm not sure if I need to take it in. I don't think I will, I think I'll just keep it sheltered on the patio.

Notes to Self

But you can read them too. Some plans in no particular order.

1. Whitefly and aphid prevention: get and release ladybugs at the beginning of July, have insecticidal soap (try to make your own this time around) on hand for when they've all gone away to take care of whatever whiteflies manage to stick around. I have a feeling they will. There are other helpful bugs, small wasps I think, that you can encourage to come live by your plants, they just need homes. Small hollow bamboo sticks and holes drilled into a block of wood (or buy them on Etsy) are supposed to work. Don't forget to frequently check UNDER the leaves of all the plants througout the month of June. Don't forget that the whitefly infestation started on the peppermint. Also remember that the infestation got worse when the plants were wilted, so keep them watered.
2. Mildew prevention: get a recipe for a baking soda solution and spray that on the mildew-prone plants (nasturtiums and peas especially) as soon as it starts to get humid. Also, be sure to keep these plants dry, keep a close eye on them and immediately prune any leaves that become infected. You can't wait and see!
3. Chamomile: it was ugly (aside from the flowers) and messy and aphid prone. Follow the aphid prevention plan. Also, this time plant a bunch in one pot and keep it well pruned. Hopefully this will prevent the scraggly look and increase yield. If that doesn't help, switch to Roman chamomile the following year and try again.
4. Find out what the heck went wrong with the nasturtiums. Maybe I need to read something about them.

I will have a winter garden this year. I know that pansies are, by some miracle, winter hardy. I'm sure there are plenty other plants that are as well that would be suitable for a temporary winter garden. I need to figure out what those are, where to get them, and how best to arrange them. Ideally the only costs I should incur would be for the price of the plants. I'll use my existing pots once they are cleared of their annuals. The soil I have left over should be plenty for my purposes. A small space heater would be great too. This year I want the patio to be a place to go for fresh air during the winter instead of a graveyard for dead plants and stuff we aren't using.

Harvest Season

I don't think most of these pictures really require explanation. The pepper plants do now have ripe peppers and they are very tasty. The odd collection of things on the leaf below are the nymphs of some variety of shield bug (it took me a LONG time to figure that out) and they would eat my plants so I threw that leaf off the balcony. In the picture of the three tomatoes, it is the very small tomato on the far left that I grew. As small as they are, I grew great tasting tomatoes. The spiky plant is the culantro. I've since pruned off the larger spiny stem to let the wider leaves grow some more. I cut down the tomato plant that never produced tomatoes to make pot space for a hibiscus that I rescued. It is still on the road to recovery, but the passion vine is flowering again and I'm training it to grow up onto the patio lantern. I planted two pots of sugar peas and threw some basil seeds into the pots also for good measure. They sprouted in no time and I'm hoping that the cooler drier season will be better for them. I also rearranged the patio based upon the sunlight needs of the plants and to make a well defined sitting area on the patio. Even with the new open sitting area, my friends are still calling it The Jungle.

Progress and Regress

I have little tomatoes growing! The violas are blooming quite beautifully, each day their colors become more vibrant. One new pot of violas has sprouted as well. I recently planted peppermint and oregano in the old strawberry pots and the basil seeds I planted have sprouted and are starting to look like basil. The pepper plants have also started to bloom.

So now for the regress. The biggest disaster was the Topsy Turvy. We set it up last night with a Yellow Pear Heirloom tomato plant. This morning I discovered the screw had come loose from the patio ceiling and the Topsy Turvy had fallen and the tomato plant was in four pieces (one had been launched into the peppermint plant). The Topsy Turvy is fine, we just need to use a bigger screw hook (we were using one that was already installed) and find a more secure spot in the ceiling. But I will have to buy a new tomato plant, and that is annoying.

The other problems are more mild. The cilantro bombed. I got barely more than a salad out of it and it died in the heat. So the tent next to mine at the farmers market sells potted herbs (I bought the oregano and peppermint from them) and I had heard them say they had a solution to the cilantro problem. They sure do. Its called culantro, its a close relative of cilantro and tasted the same (just a little more potent) but looks completely different. It is a better plant than cilantro in many ways: you can dry it, you can freeze it, it can withstand cooking, it doesn't die in the heat, and it doesn't die as soon as it flowers. I'll keep you posted on how it works out. I'm very excited about it. Kirke likes it too, she's been sniffing and licking it.

My peas appear to have some sort of fungus, light grey spots on the leaves. I will have to look it up. I also had three catapillars eating the same yellow pepper plant that Kirke stepped on a while back. That poor plant has bad luck. It is a real trooper though, nothing seems to stop it. It is shorter than the others and full of holes, but looks just as healthy.

Pictures to come soon, but not today. Maybe when I get the Topsy Turvy up for real.

Some Pictures

I'm not going to explain much.

Peppers


Sugar Pea Flower


Nicely growing peas.


Up close, you can see the first pea pod. There are a few now.


Another view of the peas, you can see all the blooms.


Passion vine.


From a few days ago, one of the flowers from the passion vine.


Viola, if you look closely you can see the very first bloom.



Cilantro. Hidden somewhere in there are the next round of sprouts.



Tomatoes



Carrots



These are the trellises that Zac made for me. Isn't he handy?


Nasturtiums. They look like lily pads.



Chamomile flower. Pretty soon I'll have enough blooms to make tea!

Progress

Most things are growing quickly. The tomatoes are doing much better this year. One of the most exciting developments is that the peas are blooming. Pretty little white flowers that look like bonnets. The passion vine had two flowers open so far. I took a picture of one, I'll post that in my next bought of picture posting. The chamomile looks close to blooming, I see quite a few little buds forming. The cilantro is about three inches tall now and so I planted the second wave of seeds. I also planted basil seeds in one of the old strawberry pots.

There have been some mishaps. The one "strawberry" seedling does not appear to be a strawberry at all, but a weed. Only time will tell. I'm going to plant oregano in the other strawberry pot, but I don't think I'll do it from seed. My sage is not really growing. It is very susceptible to stress. I tried one last ditch effort and pot coffee grounds in the pot. It has revived a little, but no sign of growth yet. I may just have to buy a sage plant. Kirke has done her part in wreaking havoc, she stepped on one of the mini yellow bell pepper plants. It seems to be doing alright, but looks to have been broken at its base. It is still connected to its roots, but it is really floppy. I mounded the soil around it and I'm hoping it will strengthen up again. It seems to be getting all its nutrients, it looks just as healthy as the others.

Pictures next time.

Pictures!

Now everything is planted! And the patio is an absolute mess. The carrots sprouted just a few days ago and are coming up in force now.

This is one view of the patio. The tomato cages are huge, but Zac told me they were the smaller size. I should have gone to see the bigger size. I have never heard of tomato trees. This picture doesn't even show everything. To the left of the tomatoes is the planter of carrots. The pieces of wood are what Zac is going to use to build three trellises.

Another view of the patio. The orange things in the blue plastic container are my discarded plant labels. I switched them out with the nice new white ones. Kirke is having a hard time finding a spot to look through the lattice.


Chamomile! No flowers yet.



Peas! These are doing very well. They are sending out climbing shoots (I'm sure there is a real name for them), so hopefully they'll have a trellis to climb soon.


Peppers! Still very small. What is amazing to me is how poorly they do on really hot days. They do not like it, they didn't like it last year either. Wimpy peppers. I have two planters of these, for six plants. Two mini yellow, two mini red, and two regular sized green/red.


A note to Grandma: I know you wanted to buy me the pots...but I'll tell you what, get me two topsy turvy hanging bags for Christmas and I'll grow cucumbers next year.

Dirt all over the patio

Back from California and things are growing nicely. The cilantro sprouted and the peas are almost two inches tall. Yesterday and today I did a lot more work on the garden. I planted one big planter full of carrots. They are a small variety and I opted for some overcrowding and planted three rows. It worked alright last year to eat the tiny ones I pulled out to thin the ranks and let the others grow bigger. I also transplanted a lot of the sprouts. The one chamomile plant I transplanted took to the new pot right away, I'd say it grew half an inch overnight. I don't have the final pots for the tomatoes yet, but I moved them into tiny pots that are at least larger than the little pods they had been trying to grow in.

I think I found a strawberry sprout, but it's too soon to say whether that is a strawberry or a weed.

There aren't too many things left to transplant. Just the bell peppers, chamomile, and stage 2 on the tomatoes. I still have the nasturtium seeds to plant and a few more violas. Later in the spring I'll sow the seeds for basil and more cilantro. Right now I have an abundance of basil in the house, so I have time to kill.

I'll take some pictures of my productive porch in the next couple days and post them.

Cold Hardy

Some of the peas sprouted today! No sign of the cilantro yet, but it has been cold, I wouldn't sprout either. I've been keeping all the sprouts I started indoors outdoors all day and overnight now. The plan is to keep them outside until I get back from the wedding (my sister, Kelli, is getting married in CA, in case I have readers that are not my grandma) and then I'll transplant them to their final pots. Then I'll check the forecast, if it looks good I'll sow the carrot seeds and nasturtium seeds.

Necessary Selection

I'm in the thinning stages with my sprouts. Only the biggest sprout per seed pod wins! I hate this part. It seems to me that if a seed sprouts and makes it, it should be able to make it. But that isn't how it goes. If too may are too close they will choke each other out and then no one wins. I've started doing this earlier than I did last year, I already know the outcome, there is no sense delaying the inevitable and this gives the winners a better start. Still, it hurts. The other confounding factor is space. I only have so many pots and so large a patio.

There was a frost last night, so we're not out of the woods yet. Despite that, the chives keep growing. I'd say they are about five inches tall now.

Indoors, to manage my basil mania I've been putting the clippings into shallow bowels of water to keep them fresh until I use them. Now some of those have grown roots and are growing! I'm thinking pesto is a good idea for supper.

Peas Rotate Your Crops

Today was cold and gloomy, but I did get some planting done on the patio. I planted the cilantro in half of its pot. The packet recommended succession sowing, so while I don't have rows of garden to do that with, I'm doing one half of the pot now, and I'm planning to sow the other half once the first batch gets established. I also planted the sugar peas. I really don't know what to expect from them. That made it hard to know how many seeds to plant in the pot I have designated for them, but looking back over the info on them I am thinking of going from two plants to four. I can always pull them out if they are getting over crowded as long as I do it early enough. (I've learned my lesson on overcrowding after the tomatoes.) Below is the info on the peas from the Baker Creek site:

De Grace New!
A lovely dwarf variety that was grown in America before 1836, and likely much longer ago in Europe. This variety has been extinct to the North American seed trade for more than 20 years, so we are happy to bring back this great pea. The pods are medium sized and sweetly flavored, crisp and tender. The vines produce over a long season and are more frost hardy than many modern varieties.

I don't remember if I mentioned this before, but the chives from Tracy that were on the patio have started growing. Making good time of it too. I didn't look at them for maybe three days and they went from nothing at all to three inches tall. Nothing from the strawberries yet. Also this evening I moved all the planted pots to the edge of the patio so they would start getting real sun.

I can really understand the Dust Bowl after readying my former tomato pot for the peas. The soil was nearly ruined. I was able to see that all the roots from the tomatoes had crowded the edges to the point of a near solid wall and the soil in the middle was kicking up serious dust as I tried to work it up and get some of it out of the pot to be replaced by new potting soil and some moisture control potting mix. I used the same soil in my other pots and they had not deteriorated nearly so extremely, certainly no dust choking me. I have never read anything about tomatoes destroying the soil and I know that I overcrowded them, however after seeing the number they did, when I start planting in the ground (some day) I will think twice before planting tomatoes in the same spot every year.

All Aboard

Good news! All my window sill seeds have sprouted. That answers my question about whether the seeds from last year were still good. The California Wonder Peppers took the longest, but they finally made it. I had no idea the sage would look so different from the rest when it sprouted. Its color is just like it will be when mature and the first sprout leaves are very round and thick. The violas are very tiny still. Fitting I guess.

Soon I'm planning to take the cover off the seed starting tray, at least during the day. That particular window gets a terrible draft even though we've sealed it up. The next step will be to give the seedlings some time outside.

The blog I did not link to before for lack of time was Grow Lively which I actually found through the Crunchy Con blog.

Springtime

Tomorrow is the beginning of daylight savings time and while for many that means one less hour of sleep, I find I can suspend my usual jealousy about my sleep and be nothing but happy at the prospect of more evening sunlight. To help the feeling along, it is a high of 75 today.

For the garden segment of this post: This morning one of the Roma tomatoes sprouted.

In case you haven't noticed, I've started using this blog as a way to document my garden. More for my benefit than anyone else's. Still I hope it is enjoyable to read about my garden. I got the idea from another blog. I'll link to that next time, I have to go eat breakfast. Waffles and bacon!

Signs of Life

Chamomile sprouted yesterday. Quite quick. The instructions said not to cover the seeds but I had no choice since they are in the same container as the others so I hope this is not a sign that they are getting ahead of themselves.

As Promised

Here are some pictures from last year's garden.

The cucumbers that never were. I couldn't keep them watered enough, the pots were too small. They grew long and thin and never made cucumbers longer than an inch. Then they were attacked by tiny spiders and were covered with a thin veil of web, which essentially blocked out the sun and killed them. All rather horrific. I decided not to try cucumbers on the patio this year. I'll wait until I can plant some in the ground. The tiny little sprouts are strawberries. I barely got strawberries, but I'm expecting that this year those plants will produce fruit.


These were the first fruits. Mini chocolate bell peppers, a mini red bell pepper, and very small carrots. The carrots eventually grew much larger and were quite tasty. I'll be planting those again this year. I'm going to let them have the whole pot this time instead of having them share with the green onions (which weren't very successful). I also used the carrot greens in stir fry for a little green addition and my plan is to use it this year in place of parsley. The mini bell peppers were great stuffed with cream cheese and herbs and baked.


This is the new patio in the process of the move. We kept our books on the porch for the first couple weeks. On the left are some of the bell pepper plants. On the right are the green onions and the carrots. Carrots make a lot of green.


On the right is one of the mini bell pepper plants. On the right is the California Wonder bell pepper plant. I had three of those. They don't grow nearly as large in a container as you find in the grocery store. However, they were a great size for a household of two. I have some strategies for my garden this year that might allow for bigger produce, or at least more of it.

That's the gist of it. In the end it was quite wild looking. I'm sure it will be even crazier this next year. Today I planted Broad Leaf Sage and Helen Mount Violas seeds in my window sill starter garden. Technically the Violas weren't supposed to be started indoors, but they are such a year round adaptable flower as far as I can tell that I decided to satisfy my impatience. It was a snowy day and it promises to be a cold week. Come this weekend it should warm up and I think I'll plant some of the seeds outside that are supposed to be able to be started outside before the last frost. That makes me nervous, but I'm trying to trust the seed packets. You have to start somewhere.

Garden Journal

Today is day 1 of the 2009 Gappa Patio Garden! Yay! Not much to speak of on the patio as of yet. Cleared away some of the dead stuff from the pots with plants I hope will grow back: Tracy's chives and the strawberries. I also gave them a little water. More importantly, however, is that I got my seeds started. They are going to get their start on the window ledge by my side of the bed right above the dog bed.

This year I ordered my seeds from Baker Creek Heirloom Seed Company. No problems with my seed company of last year, I just liked the heirloom seed effort, appreciated knowing they make a point not to sell GMO seeds, and they had most of what I wanted. I did have some seeds left from last year. As far as I'm aware they should all be good for this year as well.

The seeds I started today:
Roma Tomatoes (yes, I'm trying again)
California Wonder Bell Peppers
Mini Red Bell Peppers
Sweet Yellow Stuffing Peppers (I think they are basically mini yellow bell peppers, but I guess I'll find out.)
German Chamomile

I like the story on the Yellow Peppers:

This amazing little pepper comes to us from Amish grower Ester Smucker of Indiana. The seed was passed down to her from her Grandmother, whom she fondly remembers growing these peppers in the 1950s in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. The very productive plants produce the cutest little mini bell-shaped peppers, only 1"-2" across! Ester uses these to make wonderful stuff ed and pickled peppers!

On the indoor gardening front, my AeroGarden herb garden is growing quite nicely. (Thanks Grandma!) The basil is insane, really. The rest of the herbs are catching up now too. I have growing basil, oregano, thyme, dill, mint, and chives. Normally I'm so reluctant to use recipes calling for fresh herbs because they cost so much. Now I'm being pressed to find ways to keep my fresh herbs from going to waste. A much better place to be, I think. A few days ago I tried my hand at making fresh pesto in the food processor. Overall a good and easy experience but I used way too much garlic.