Balcony garden update

Time again for another tour through our balcony garden. Lots of green things are sprouting (or perhaps more accurately described--growing wild...) in every container. We've been picking away at a few of the crops (like the parsley, strawberries [neither shown here]) and others are getting close. We're also making mental notes of what to include (and exclude) in our garden plans for next year.

Potatoes! The stalks are huge. We've had to prop them up they're so big (and they've been bent over in the wind). Shall I mention again how hopefull I am to have a decent crop of purple potatoes? As long as the aphids Andrew's found on the leaves don't eat up these delicious tubers before we do.

Carrots. We aren't going to continue with our carrot attempts next year. Sure, we have some stalks popping up, but they're taking a lot longer to mature than what they should and there's only about a dozen sprouts in each tub. We might replace the carrots with more potatoes, or more zucchini.

Tomatoes! No problem here. We have tons of tomatoes ripening on both these plants plus more on the two upside down, 'whimpy' tomato hangers. I'm not sure what I'm going to do with these--maybe make a tomato-pepper spaghetti sauce?

Tomatoes in varying of states of ripeness. I wish they could all ripen at once so I could do a big harvest and make something substantial. Oh well.

Blooms on the beans, or are they peas? I'm not sure. It's one or the other. They're rather pretty at any rate, but no vegetables spotted on this plant as of yet.

Blooms on the other bean (I'm fairly certain about this one) plant. It's not as pretty as the purple flowers, but I've already pulled a few yellow beans off. Since my harvest was all of five beans I just chopped them up and threw them in a salad.

A full-view of the peas and beans climbing up their trellises. Some of the leaves are getting a little sun burnt as you can see, but otherwise they're growing quite happily.

Our over ridden red onion box. So here's a problem, we don't know when we're suppose to harvest the onions. The shoots are huge and drooping all over place, but how much is actually growing below the surface? I have no idea, I guess we'll leave them for now. More rouge peppers are popping up here (in the back is the mini-jungle of hanging tomatoes).

The blooms on the red onions.

Peppers. We have tons of these growing--beside the ones that seem to want to crop up spontaneously on their own (again, a product of using composted soil). If they reach full size we'll have plenty to roast up with the tomatoes into something outrageously delicious.

And then there's the red lettuce that decided to sprout in the pepper box--not that we put it there on purpose. It's grown fantastically, better then the lettuce we intentionally planted and seems to be a good companion plant for the peppers. We've been picking it periodically and adding it into our salads.

Banana peppers. We picked these up on a whim when we went to the Kuhlmann's Greenhouse and Nursery in the spring--they should probably be picked soon.

Rhubarb! I'm still occasionally picking stalks and adding them to my stash in my freezer. One day I will bake them into something fantastic, maybe muffins? I definitely won't have enough to do jam.

Ciao,

Andrea

Balcony garden 2011: Update!

To be completely honest, Andrew does most, if not all of the gardening. I'll occasionally water the plants, or offer my thoughts if requested, but otherwise it's pretty much up to him. It's not that I don't want/don't like to garden, it's that right now I have a major editing task, and whenever I'm home I pretty much want to be on the computer working (I haven't stopped cooking yet, but depending on how things go over the next couple of weeks...I might). Regardless of my lack of attention to the garden it's pretty green out there. This spring/summer has been a bit weird (cool-ish temperatures, lots of rain) but the vegetation around Edmonton doesn't seem to mind (nor do the mosquito). Let's hope things dry out and warm up a smidge so things can keep growing.

Our parsley taking over the box with our garlic.

I hadn't realize how much the parsley had flourished until Andrew pointed it out earlier this week. I figured I better start using it, so in it went to both lunch (lentil salad) and dinner (pasta) on Saturday.

Our red onions with something else sprouting in the box, I think it looks like a tomato plant.

We should probably to do some weeding given there are foreign plants growing in just about every box on the balcony. However, just because I think something needs to get done, doesn't necessarily translate into actually doing it. Besides the maybe tomato in the onion box, there are some other smaller sprouts that might be peppers...I guess that's what we get from using our compost soil (besides really healthy plants).

Can you see it, the strawberry? I don't think we're going to have too many to harvest.

I'm not sure we'll be able to do much with the strawberries besides pick them as they ripen and eat them. Oh well. The hanger bags seem to work reasonably well, but some of the strawberry plants started out scraggly, and being hung 12 floors above the ground, exposed to the wind doesn't seemed to have helped. Not surprisingly the plants that came from a local nursery are doing much better than the ones that came from Canadian Tire.

Our pumpkins, surrounded by lettuce, which we should probably start using.

Our pumpkins are growing, the zucchini is not and I have no idea why. The zucchini grew no problem last year (until it drowned...). Oh well. I've got pumpkin recipes for pastas and a super delicious cake, so if we get a few small-ish ones I'll be happy.

Our peppers are sprouting!

The peppers are coming along nicely. I don't think we'll do anything special with them besides cook and eat them. We planted a hot pepper variety as well, so if by chance they succeed we'll save them for something...not sure what as I'm not a big salsa fan.

The rubbarb growing like a weed, as it's apt to do.

The rhubarb totally makes up for the strawberries in my mind. I really need to harvest some of it soon and at least freeze it until I've got a nice big supply then make jam or pies or cakes or muffins or, or...I can't wait.

Our potato blue box, filled to the brim. I really, really hope we get some more potatoes this year.

Look at that, just look at it. If that box isn't full of potatoes this year I will break right down and cry--just watch me. I'll video tape it. We hilled them, and the foliage looks as happy as can be, so maybe? I guess only time will tell.

Beans! I honestly don't remember which ones, but they're starting to climb.

And finally beans. We planted a bunch of different varieties and don't remember which one's which--I'm hoping it will become more apparent when we harvest and eat them. They're looking pretty happy right now and they're starting their accend up the trellises. Hopefully they won't get too much sun in their spot and fry like we've had happen in our earlier attempts to grow peas.

Ciao,

Andrea

Balcony Garden 2011: new and improved!

Because we just can't help ourselves, Andrew and I have expanded our growing plans for our balcony garden yet again. I'm not so sure this was the smartest decision ever since our success so far has been relatively limited. We harvested about ten tiny potatoes, a dozen twisted carrots, a couple of small (but crisp) peppers and one zucchini last summer. Grant you, as I've discussed before, last year's weather made it difficult for even proper farmers to cultivate their crops, and we did produce edible vegetables so I guess that's enough of an incentive to plunge ahead with our plans for this year. So, if you're willing to indulge me, come along for a 'tour' of our garden.

View of the balcony, stage left. We have two hangers, the red for strawberries, the green for whimpy tomatoes. We tried to start the strawberries ourselves, and we're still trying, but they're tiny and if they'll ever be ready for outdoor life it won't be until next year. We bought starter plants from Canadian Tire instead. Ditto almost exactly for the tomatoes. Below the hangers, attached to the railings, are our peppers. Yet again, ditto. We tried to get plants started on our own, but they dried out and died when we were away in Florida. Further below on the ground are: a clump of fiddleheads, potatoes (purple), carrots (also purple), rhubarb and an assortment of grasses. More on these later.

Balcony view stage right. Same hangers, but underneath we've got garlic (growing like crazy) and onions. We had some very dry starter onions in our closet, which we threw in the green planter for the heck of it. After two weeks (or more, I've forgotten) we hadn't seen anything break the surface, so we tore them up and replaced them with fresh seeds we grabbed at the market. Below, in the blue bin are more carrots (these ones are regular orange) and the circular planters you can see just at the bottom hold pumpkin and zucchini (one set in each centre container) and lettuce around the rims. The buckets off to the side are the home of various beans.

Our lettuce. We only put it in last week, but it's already doing quite well.

The rhubarb has come through two winters of being left out on the balcony (unlike Andrew's poor grape vine, which didn't make it). I can't wait for it to thicken up so I can make some jam, or a pie, or something. I imagine there will probably only be enough for one project.

Those tiny green sprouts are our purple carrots. Pretty much all of the seeds I planted are now poking out of the dirt in both tubs. There should be enough room in these containers for the carrots to grow properly this year.

Fiddleheads! I was excited to see these at the market this weekend, and they were four bucks for a bundle. We don't really know how to grow it, but we'll figure it out somehow. One of the booths had asparagus, but it's supposed to take a couple of years for asparagus to reach a harvest-ready point, so there wasn't much point in bringing any home when we don't expect to be in Edmonton for more than two years.

We've already added on a couple of inches of dirt to our potato box and they just keep growing. I'm crossing my fingers that when we dig them up in September, we'll be rewarded with enough potatoes for two meals...maybe? I'd just like to find potatoes bigger than ping-pong balls? I really, truly, thought we were going to have a blue-box full of potatoes last year, I just don't want to be as disappointed with our harvest this year.

The garlic--I kind of wish I'd planted more. I suppose we could if our other crops fail, we'll see how things go.

And that's our garden. I'll report on how it's doing later on in the summer--and try to take some better pictures next time. I was in a bit of a hurry on Monday, plus it was gray and gross outside.

Ciao,

Andrea

Everyday ordinary: Gardening

Perhaps the first week of February seems like an odd time to talk about gardening, but once again, I have two reasons for doing this: 1) I failed to give a final wrap up of how our balcony garden from 2010 worked out; and 2) Andrew and I are now planning what we're going to plant for the upcoming season.

Last year we saw a modest harvest--we are attempting to grow vegetables on a balcony twelve floors above street level, so to expect a haul that will keep us going all winter long is unreasonable. We did see an improvement over our previous attempts, I would guess in large part due to our two vermicomposters. The nutrient rich soil the colony of worms hanging out in our storage closet produced is perfect for our vegetables and there was no need to add fertilizer. Our major challenge last year was weather. Our summer was cold and rainy. We didn't have a day over 30C all year, and we received more rain than normal in desert-like Edmonton. I don't feel too bad about our limited success considering many of the farmers at the market struggled to fill their stalls with quality produce.

Nonetheless, we manage to produce a small collection of tomatoes, most of which went into make a batch of delicious sourdough tomato hamburger buns. Green-red peppers, which were delightfully crisp and sweet and pretty much used up in one roast. We were also able to pick greens over a period of one or two months to add to our salads. Our potatoes were disappointing. I had fostered high hopes that when we dug into our blue-bin we would find a treasure trove of potatoes--the plants were tall and bushy and I'd thought for sure we'd be 'in the money,' but I think we ended up with a dozen small 'taters (thanks for digging in the dirt, Michelle!). Our zucchini plant was also disappointing. The plant started off well, but developed rot (most likely due to the damp weather) and we only managed to harvest one summer squash before it died. The carrots were small...and deformed...but we kind of knew they didn't have enough room to grow, so I don't call them a disappointment...but not a success either.

Valient the grapevine did very well this year. We hope he survives the winter.

Our one successful zucchini, gone in one meal.

Bright red tomatoes. The made delicious buns (I'm not that big a fan of tomatoes, actually).

Green peppers, which eventually turned partially red.

So, what are we going to plant this year? This year we're taking advantage of our Friends of Devonian Garden membership, which allows us to pick out up to 25 seed packages for free (we can purchase more, if we wish). Since a number of these seeds are for heirloom plants native to Edmonton or at least Alberta, I have high hopes that we might see even greater success this year. We've picked a rather eclectic bunch of plants including a dwarf pomegranate tree, native grasses, rye, beans with vibrantly coloured flowers, and another variety of beans that's supposed to taste like asparagus. We've also ordered seeds for the Alberta rose. We'll be taking a trip out to Devonian this weekend to tour their greenhouses (they're hosting a 'winter pick-me-up') when we get to pick up our seeds as well. We'll see how things go once the weather warms up.

Ciao,

Andrea

Balcony garden update (aka I have nothing more exciting to blog about...)

True, it's mid-summer, I've already taken my vacation, and Andrew's out of town at a conference in Germany, therefore I simply don't have much to write about. That's not to say I just sit around at home all the time twiddling my thumbs (as blogged last week I spend most of my nights editing or writing), but I don't do a lot of super exciting things that I think other people would care about (not that I think people care much about what I write ordinarily anyway). I suppose I could track my experience of training for a marathon, but I'm not a fitness expert, so my musings would be purely self-case study and as I'm well aware, an "n" of 1 does not equal sound scientific evidence.

And so I turn to our garden. Unfortunately the weather hasn't been the best for vegetable growing thus far (although the week that's passed since I originally wrote this has been quite nice). We've had a lot of rain and not much in the way of sun or heat. I pulled up the radishes a week or two ago as the thick prickly stalks and flowers sprouting from the stems seemed to indicate the were never going to blossom into an edible plant no matter how long I left them in the soil. I fear the carrots may go the same way as the radishes, although the planter shown below might yet turn out to be all right--I haven't peaked in on the roots to see how they're comming along. And the rhubarb has not done well either (I didn't think those things could be killed). The roots rotted due to over watering and although Andrew tried to perform a partial root-ectomy, its leaves have continued to yellow and wither.

Our carrots. I think they're looking pretty good.

On the bright side, some of our plants have flourished. Check out the tomato plant. Despite a stem-fracture caused by high winds (have I mentioned we live on the 12th floor?) there are at least a dozen little tomatoes sprouting all over. Then there's the zucchini. No sign of vegetation yet, but look at the leaves on that thing, its really going strong (and the lettuce isn't doing too badly either). Next over are our happy potatoes. I can't wait to dig them up in the fall. I suppose we could have pulled some up early and had baby potatoes--maybe next year if we increase our crop size. Finally there are the peppers. They're still pretty tiny, and very green, but they seem to be content hanging out on the side of the railing.

A couple of our furthest along tomatoes, still very green.

A full view of our tomatoes.

Our zucchini plant surrounded by lettuce.

One of our pepper plants. How exciting! I hope it matures into a bright red pepper.

The potatoes are huge! I can't wait to dig them up in the fall.

We'll continue to tend to our crops over the remainder of the summer and take stock when it comes time to harvest. I don't think we'll bother with radishes next year, and possibly no carrots either. On the other hand the tomatoes and the potatoes are pretty much a given. Perhaps some other types of squash might be worth while? Or more herbs? I've got a small pot of parsley and basil inside, but I wouldn't say no to chives, mint or basil.

Ciao,

Andrea

Balcony graden 2010: Containers galore

I have not yet blogged about our gardening attempts for 2010. Even though we haven't had a huge amount of success in the past, we've really gone all out this year. I'm not sure what's made us so optimistic for this season, I think part of it is the introduction of our worm composters. We had plant matter growing in our compost bins (which we keep in our storage closet, in the dark), so we'd like to think that now that we have things properly planted in the soil and kept on the balcony in the sunshine, we should see more things growing, or even thriving. I think we're also just somewhat foolishly determined to grow something out there and the more stuff we plant, the better chance that at least one crop will work out.

Full view (or as much as I could get in) of the balcony with all of our containers. Note the bistro set, which we just got this weekend from Canadian Tire.

We started planting during the weeks following our return from Europe. First there was the epic task of trying to sift through our worm bins. At first we tried to be really careful and separate out as many of the worms as possible. However, after an entire afternoon disappeared spent working on only one bin, we were less devote going over the second. Once we re-bedded our worms we started planting (in fresh containers, or course), just the basics that we've tried before: carrots, radishes and the rhubarb plant we purchased from the farmer's market last year. We opted out of peas as they always ended up getting fried in the sun. Then we planted zucchini, as everyone I've ever known to grow zucchini says it grows like weeds. The next week at the farmer's market we picked up tomato and pepper plants (I tried to sprout these at home, but they didn't grow) and added them to the growing collection of pots on our balcony.

Our radishes. I hope we can harvest them soon.

Rhubarb, destine for jam or some kind of desert, like pie, or maybe a coffee cake.

The tomato plant, doing quite well too. Note the two tiny green tomatoes growing in the middle of the plant.

One of our big planters with a zucchini plant starting in the middle section. Lettuce is growing all around the exterior.

The peppers, starting to flower already.

Have I mentioned the potatoes yet? Supposedly they're great for container gardening and after I discovered a couple of instructional videos online about how to grow potatoes, we purchased a blue bin, some seed potatoes and planted those too. Oh...and then there's the newest addition to the family...this one's entirely Andrew's baby...we have a grapevine named Valiant. Okay, so Valiant isn't really it's name, it's the type of grape, but Andrew told me that's what its name is, so that's what I'm going to call it.

The potatoes, which seem to be as happy as a proverbial clam in their blue box. And Tabitha, probably watching some birds.

Valiant. A spindly right now, but we'll see what we can do over the summer.

We'll see how things progress over the months. Edmonton hasn't had a lot in the way of hot weather so far this year and after we'd gotten everything going we even had a couple of days of snow--which I think might have stunted the radishes. I have high hopes for the potatoes though, which seem to be doing really well. Otherwise, who knows what will work out. I'll definitely post again if we have any success.

Ciao,

Andrea

We have worms and yes, we're happy about this

Aside from attending Green Day, this week has been a quiet one around the Milne household. I was worried I would have to dredge up some whimsical blog ideas (such as my life's ambitions--I'd thought up three) just to post something. Instead I'm going to briefly blog about our newest addition to our apartment: worms.

That's right, you read it correctly, worms.

I received a call on Friday from the Earth's General Store to inform me that our vermicomposter had arrived. We picked it up on Saturday. Once home, we filled our bin (a large Rubbermaid, I'm not sure what the capacity is, but it's probably 1m x 0.5m x 0.75m) with soil and worms, and installed it into our storage closet that afternoon. So now we have worms in our apartment, munching on our produce scraps. We've already set aside a couple of litres of scraps to feed them throughout the week. I'm hopeful that the worms will help us cut down on the amount of garbage we produce. We expect to have fresh, nutrient rich soil in 4 to 6 months. We'll use it in our balcony garden next year.



A note on our balcony garden: It's going...so-so. Our peas shot up very quickly, but many of the plants were baked in the sun. We've been eating the occasional pea off the vines that have survived, but we don't feel it's worth it to plant them next year. I had to re-start the carrots about 3 weeks ago. We think we started the first batch too early and weren't getting enough sunlight hours to thrive. Hopefully the new plants will fair better. Our tomato plants are full and healthy, but I've yet to see any tomatoes sprout. I think this may be due to the cool temperatures we've been having this year. Our strawberries are much they same. We've got several large plants, but no berries. I think its unlikely that any will be produced either. We'll try again next year.

Ciao,

Andrea

Balcony garden 2009: Day 90

Just a quick note: we have peas!




We should probably pick them and eat them soon. Yum.

Ciao,

Andrea