Ah, windows open weather = cat bliss! I’ve set out my mason bee house. The top lifts off so you can see inside. There’s cotton for nesting in one chamber and it’s set up on bricks to keep it from rotting. Mason bees are a gardener’s best friend as they happily pollinate all sorts of things in the garden. I do need to move my little house to a shadier spot. It calls for partial shade but I suspect this area that bakes in the afternoon sun is less than ideal.
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Athrun and I planted this years seedlings four weeks ago. I know it was a bit early for pretty much everything but the peas, but we’ve been having fun tending them. Since we have very limited space for planting, we only seeded one flat worth of vegetables for the year. We had 100% germination for every variety of plant except peas. Now, I have up to five seedlings when I really only have room one or two plants out of each variety. Some of the seedlings were getting so large that I have already put them in larger pots (I’m looking at you squash and cucumber). They seem to be thriving, I just hope they survive the move from pot to earth box. There is also the secret hope that I can somehow find room all of the seedlings to grown out on the balcony. Of course, then I have to contend with whether I will be able to get out there and water everything.
The start of this year’s yellow squash.
A jolly cucumber seedling. Last year, we were giving cucumbers away with only one giant plant. This year I have plans for at least two giant plants. The cucumber plant also kept producing through the six weeks we had at 100+ degrees when the tomatoes took a break.
My tomato seedlings are still rather small, therefore not pictured. I waited too long to thin them out. They are doing well, but they look small compared to the rest of the giant seedlings in the tray. (Also not pictured are peas, which are already outside and doing pretty well. Maybe because I am covering them with a blanket at night.)
I have to say that if it hadn’t been for Athrun, I probably wouldn’t have tried to go sunflowers in containers. Sunflowers are so lovely in the summer, and they can really be good bug deterrents, but they are just so darn big. Plus, flowers aren’t food. But, like every year, the balcony garden is one great big experiment. Imagining a row of giant sunflowers on my balcony in late summer gives me enough joy to try it out, even if it doesn’t happen.
And now for the plants that will likely prove the biggest container garden challenge.
This my friends is a cheerful little watermelon seedling. One of five cheerful little seedling full of sweet, refreshing, mouthwatering mid-summer potential. This little watermelon seedling is mocking me. It’s daring me to plant it in an earth box and train its vines to grow up while training it’s fruits to grow down. This will test my limits as a new gardener. This plant is telling me that it wants to grow and thrive, but if I don’t take care if just right it will mock me unceasingly until I can afford a house with a yard.
I saved my favorite seedling for last.
The pumpkins. I know I shouldn’t play favorites, but look at this gigantic plant!
When Athrun and I planted the tray a month ago, we opened our little packet of organic pumpkin seeds and there were three–THREE!–seeds inside. We both felt as though the seed company had pulled one over on us. I mean, have you ever pulled seeds out of pumpkin? There are only about a million! And here we had paid $3 for three seeds. We made little soil mounds in the box and planted our three seeds. And then waited. All the other seedlings were bouncing up out of the soil. We had a veritable tomato sprout forest (which I used a magnifying glass to thin), and the peas were getting too tall for our plant shelf.
Then, one week ago something started to pop out of the row marked “pumpkin”. It has been ONE WEEK since the pumpkins germinated. All three seeds are up and growing strong. These seedlings are just defiant. Unlike the watermelon, these guys are saying to me, “I am going to go grow no matter what you do to me.” And I can get behind that kind of attitude in a plant.
So far, everything but the peas are growing in the balcony window on a wire shelf. I need to prune my basil plant and chuck the oregano and start over. Athrun’s mint plant is full of new leaves, but needs a little cleaning up after the winter. The hardware store down the street had started setting up its garden center in the parking lot. That means it’s just about time to grab giant bags of potting soil and some fertilizer and replant the earth boxes, even if I have to move them in and out for a couple weeks. (Then I can also direct seed some spinach!) The trellis needs to go back up, because it’s been rolled up in the corner of the balcony all winter and it’s really starting to look sloppy to me. I want my clean, green balcony back.
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Tagged Balcony Garden, balcony gardening, container gardening, cucumber, gardening, germination, peas, pumpkins, seedlings, spinach, squash, sunflowers, tomatoes, watermelon
This year’s garden just came in the mail.
That is to say, we just got FORTY-FIVE packets of seeds from Baker Creek! I had to jump up on the table to get a picture of everything! If you’ve ever wondered how a whole year’s worth of homegrown vegetables begins, wonder no further.
I got a good number of seedlings started today. There are whole flats of onions, leeks, peppers, tomatoes, and even eggplants (which I hate, but, well, I’m not the only person who needs to eat this summer). There’s a lot more work to do, but it’s a start I’m proud of.
About half of the seedlings are in flats, but the other half are in soil blocks. Everyone who uses them is positively evangelical about them, since they work so well in minimizing transplant shock. I hadn’t ever used them before, and, honestly, was a little mystified as to how a soil blocker actually worked. Luckily, we found a soil-blocker in the barn (don’t you love it when that happens?), and decided to give it a spin. It’s pretty cool, so I thought I’d show you how they work.
First of all, you get your soil really wet– like, squeeze a handful and water comes out (we did this in a big plastic tub, the kind usually used for organizing). You want the mudpie you’re making to cohere.
Next, jam your soil-blocker down into the soil, filling up the chambers with dirt. Rock and knead the block-maker back and forth– the more you compress the soil, the better your block will hold together.
You bring the block maker over to your tray (Zac put these together for me this afternoon. They’re plywood with a bit of trim nailed around the edges. Really, you could use anything that gives a good base to your blocks. These are 18″ x 25″, and hold 84 little blocks),
and, to eject the blocks, press the plunger while pulling up on the chambers.
And look at that! Four soil blocks of eight cubic inches each, with a little dimple in the center of each one, for planting seeds.
Between loading up the blocker, you can dip it in water to clean off the excess soil, if you’d like less scraggly-looking blocks.
Here, I’m planting our peppers: Sweet Italian Peppers, Hungarian Paprika, Jalapeños, and ten precious Ghost Peppers, for Zac.
All our little baby plants are safely tucked away in these two beautiful greenhouses, which were a present from Susan’s mom (thank you, Carol!). I had the distinct impression, while sliding in the trays, that I was getting putting bread into the oven– having kneaded, prepared, and sown, there was nothing left to do but await a magical transformation.
Have you all started your seeds yet? What are you growing? I would love to hear about it– nothing gets me so excited as hearing about garden plans!
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