A Lot Has Happened In a Month!

I can't believe that it has been a month since my last post. I intended to post several times over the lat 30 days, but I kept getting distracted. I was not distracted from the actual act of gardening, however. Everything has grown like weeds!

The only plants that have not sprouted are the pink bananas and the Thai red papayas. I still have hope for them though. The weather is getting much warmer (it's been highs of 80 degrees all weekend here in South Florida), and I hope that the balmy temps will trigger sprouting in my bashful seeds.

Marcus Aurelius (my polydamus butterfly) finally emerged from his chrysalis on Valentines day. I missed it because I was at work, but my roommate called me to give me the good news. He looked spectacular, and had an affinity for my mint plant.

 

I released him as soon as the wind died down so that he could go find better eats than my flowering eggplant and roses.

On one of my many trips to Lowes, I discovered Georgia Sweet onion seedlings and some Heirloom Beefsteak tomato plants that I could not pass up. (Yes, I do realize I need better impulse control.) I planted the onions and tomatoes in one of my recycled cat litter container earth buckets.

A NOTE ON EARTH BUCKETS: Earth buckets (aka global buckets) are a great way to reuse containers by creating a self-watering plant container. I am collecting my cat litter containers to use as earth buckets, but 5 gallon buckets are the more common option. I cover the tops of my earth buckets with plastic shopping bags that have holes cut in them for the plants to grow out of. The plastic cover helps to keep the soil from losing moisture. I won't go into how to make one here because there are many fantastic how-to videos on Youtube. 

Last weekend I got the new beefsteak tomatoes, onions, Swiss chard, mustard, cucumbers, melons, beans, and some of the peppers planted in their respective containers.  At this point, I began to worry about floor space on my balcony.

Beefsteak Tomatoes

 Swiss Chard

Mustard Greens

Cucumbers & Onions

Sleeping Beauty & Banana Melon Sprouts

Beans & Assorted Peppers

But I still had tomatoes, peppers, and eggplant seedlings to transplant into pots from the seed starter trays.



This weekend I returned to Lowes and purchased two 64 quart bags of MiracleGro Moisture Control potting soil, some peat pots, and some regular 8-12 inch clay pots. My seedlings were getting too big and too crowded in their starter tray, and I needed to get them planted quickly. However, I was shocked to see how many individual plants I actually had! Apparently, I accidentally planted more seeds than I realized, because I had a TON of tomato and pepper plants that I have absolutely no room for. Now, this is an astounding number, and I do realize how crazy it is, and no, I don't know how it happened, but after 6 hours of transplanting the seedlings to peat pots, I had 47 pots of EXTRA plants! 47 EXTRA!



One tray of my extra plants -- mostly tomato and pepper plants



Tray of extra tomato plants



Overwhelmed by the crazy amount of plants I had,  I immediately started making calls to give away mass quantities of tomato and pepper plants. I am becoming the Johnny Appleseed of tomato plants.

So, now my garden is all planted and pretty much all that is left is the growing. One of my favorite things to do after work is to go out on my balcony to see what has grown in the 24 hrs since the last time I have looked. There is always some minute but inspiring growth.



Beans and Peppers Growing

Black Cherry & Carbon Tomato Plants in an Earth Bucket

Wonderberry Plants

 Pots of  Black Cherry & Carbon Tomatoes

Tiny Ground Cherry Plants

Eggplant is Fruiting

Mint and Catnip is Overtaking the Shelves

So, that is the latest on my garden's progress. My next posts will be about a resource I've recently discovered on wild Florida plants, and some reviews on the canning and preserving books I've books I've reading.



In the Beginning There Were Seeds

So a couple of weeks ago I read Farm City: The Education of an Urban Farmer by Novella Carpenter. It completely inspired me. I have been disenchanted with life lately: I am living in a city I don't care for, doing a thankless job, living far from friends and family. I need something to look forward to in my days. This book gave me a direction to achieve that. I decided to try my hand at my own small-scale urban garden.

I live in a condo in the middle of a large South Florida city. I have no land whatsoever. But I do have a lovely little West-facing, screened in balcony. I have a couple of rose bushes and some mint growing out there now. But after reading Carpenter's book, I have visions of juicy tomatoes, crisp peppers, cucumbers, zucchinis, melons, beans, and anything else yummy I can cram out there. I have romantic notions of coming home from my artificially-lighted cubicle and spending my evenings re-potting, weeding, tending, and harvesting from my balcony garden. I even  hope to be able to harvest enough to try my hand at canning and preserving some of my bounty.

But first things first. I have been reading about Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs), and though I think that they have a certain utility, I also think that the science and technology has been drastically over-used to increase profit and property rights of giant seed corporations (I'm looking at you Burpee, ConAgra, and Cargill) at the detriment of entire produce lines. Seeds have become the property of corporations, and these corporations don't want you to become self-sustainable, they want you to be dependent on them for your produce/seeds.

I want to take myself out of this industrial cycle, so I chose to buy heirloom seeds that are guaranteed to be GMO-free, natural (non-hybrid), and open-pollinated. These are seeds from hardy, old-world stock that have survived from times well-before chemical pesticides and herbicides were introduced. These heirloom varieties tend to be hardier and tastier than their industrial cousins, and their seeds can be replanted for generations to come.

I decided to jump into my heirloom seed purchase with both feet. I ordered 14 seed varieties from Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds that I thought I would get the most use out of: Black Cherry Tomato, Carbon Tomato, Purple Beauty Pepper, Sweet Red Stuffing Pepper, Black Night Pepper, Tam Jalapeno Pepper, Southern Giant Curled Mustard Greens, European Mesclun Mix, Chinese Mixed Chives, Greek Dwarf Basil, Genovese Basil, Broad Leaf Sage, Jewel Peach Melba Nasturtium, and Balsam Camelia Flowers (just because I think they are beautiful). I knew I would have a ton more seeds than I could use, but I convinced friends and family to try this urban gardening experiment with me and planned to send my excess seeds all over the state of Florida.

The seeds arrived from Baker Creek in three days! I was so excited to get started. I immediately drove to Lowe's to pick up a couple of seed trays to start my plants. So on Thursday night I sowed my first seeds.

Then I waited.

I sent the list of seeds that I had purchased to my mother to let her know what seeds she would be receiving from me. She was looking forward to starting her own garden, which would be much larger than mine because she actually has a yard she can utilize. She wanted to get some more seeds though. Things like onions and beans. She asked me if I'd make another order.

So I've made a second order of seeds. Together we will be receiving: Pink Bananas, Banana Melon, Wonderberry, Ground Cherry, Dill, Horace Boyette Burpless Cucumber, Parisian Pickling Cucumber, Chinese Red Noodle Bean, Thai White Seeded Long Bean, Malaysian Dark Red Eggplant, Sleeping Beauty Melon, Violet de Galmi Onion, Variegata di Chioggia Radicchio, Wando Garden Pea, Costata Romanesco Zucchini, Thyme, Cilantro, and Thai Red Papaya.

I think I am going to have too many plants.

So today is Monday, and I haven't received the second package of seeds yet, but the first plantings are already starting to sprout! I have salad and peppers already coming up. I am already feeling a little accomplished.

I want to grow the plants in recycled materials as much as possible. My father made me some earth buckets (aka global buckets), and I plan to re-use some containers that I have around the house (unused cat litter pans, litter buckets, plastic containers, etc.) to cut down on the amount of pots that I will need to purchase. I have some clay pots that I will be able to use as well, and I am hoping that I will not have to buy very many new ones. I hope to be able to fit a lot of plants on the balcony by using some shelving to keep smaller plants up off the floor, trellising, and some of the larger plants, like the banana and papaya trees and the mustard greens in large movable pots in my condo's entryway. I need to make the most of the outside space that I have.

The next step will be to start the second package of seeds when they arrive and begin to build the shelving structures and trellises on the balcony so that they are ready to house the plants when I pot them. Pictures will also be forthcoming.