Closed for the winter

I guess this blog went a big neglected for the end of the summer. Here's a quick recap along with winterizing plans.

The successes of the summer were cherry tomatoes, peas and geraniums. I will definitely invite those plants into my garden next year. I also have a few perennials that I'm hoping will survive the winter on the windy roof: a hydrangea, lavender, some bulbs that I forgot the name of and mint.

I read online that hydrangeas need to be protected and insulted from the first frost to the last. I don't really have anything to protect my plant, so I'm using the grill cover from our broken grill. I hope that keeps the plant as warm as the recommended oak leaves.

Until the spring!

August Recap

Here's a rundown of how things are going in my garden this season:
- Tomatoes -- I planted heirlooms. I got 1 or 2 good sized ones. The rest are glorified cherry tomatoes, except with extra thick skin. The plants themselves are a nasty yellow/green color. Tomato blight? Bad gardening skills?
- Strawberries -- I got a few earlier in the season and, strangely, they continue to come in. Just yesterday I ate a fingernail (pinky) sized strawberry. It was pretty good. For the most part, though, they've been tart and have tasted somewhat similar to Sour Patch Kids.
- Cucumbers -- the plant is about 4 inches tall. Last year I had a bunch of cucs and plants that were climbing up my railing.
- Ornamental Gourds -- some flowers. No gourds.
- Mint -- doing very well. I made a raspberry mojito the other day with the mint. It was disgusting. Don't mix raspberry seltzer, rum, and mint. It doesn't work.
- Blueberries -- I have 1 blueberry. It is pretty big, but not big enough to make up for the fact that it is the only blueberry on the bush.

I'm not sure what went wrong. Too much rain early in the season? I wasn't diligent about watering because of all the rain. Could it be they didn't get enough water? I also had a weed problem this year. Maybe the weeds took all the nutrients? I think next year I'll get new soil and start fresh.

Harvest

I had my first official harvest this evening. The peas are definitely the biggest success so far. They even taste good!

Tomatoes and beans coming soon:

I only have two flowers, one nasturtium and one zinnia. I think it's awesome how this zinnia has little flowers in its center.

Where is the sun?

My plants are dying, they need sun. My tomato plant is weak, has few leaves, and fewer flowers. My gourds are yellowed and small. My marigolds barely a few inches out of the ground.

Progress on the Upper West Side

What a difference a few weeks make!

My basil (granted it wasn't from seed...) is almost tree-like in its size. Dill, mini basil and rocket (arugula), all started from seed, are now actually recognizable. My French pumpkin plant grew so huge that I had to plant it in a real garden - my terrace pots weren't big enough.

A few general shots of my herb garden, with close-ups of the plants grown from seed - the mint is in a pot because I was told that it would take over the entire garden if not properly restrained:

From Smoggy Basil June 2009

From Smoggy Basil June 2009

From Smoggy Basil June 2009

Norm - I am so glad to hear you too are growing strawberries. A few weeks ago, I uprooted a strawberry plant from my parents' house and brought it to my terrace. Backstory: the strawberry plants my parents have all originate from 3 plants I planted over 10 years ago, when I was in high school. My friends and I sold flower bulbs and strawberry plants to raise money for a school program, and the strawberry plants my parents purchased have propagated annually into a bona fide strawberry patch.
I returned from my college reunion this evening to find 3 bright red berries:

From Smoggy Basil June 2009

As you can see, my strawberry plant looks like it is one wind gust away from death. Is this what yours look like? Should I water them at all or leave it up to the skies?

I would like to be more adventurous in my plantings next year and do fruits/vegetables in addition to herbs. Any suggestions? I also will need a good basic pesto recipe...and any other recipes which feature herbs. I tried searching on Epicurious.com today for something featuring tarragon, but, alas, 'tarragon' is not a valid search term on its own.

Here's to more frequent postings (and no more advertising on this site!) in June

Strawberries

I picked 3 strawberries this morning. 2 of them were bursting. I'll see how they taste tonight.

Differential diagnosis

I have been doing some investigating on the web about my yellowing pea plants. It might be the dreaded root rot! According to Wikipedia, root rot is "usually lethal and there is no treatment." I assume the best thing to do is to stop watering them. Too bad it's raining outside.

Progress

The garden is coming along, here are some pictures from a couple weeks ago that I've been meaning to post for a while.

I created a support system for the peas because the were kind of floppy. Chopsticks are useful for so many things.

They've grown a lot in the past few weeks, here's one from today:

You can see that they're a bit dry and yellowing towards the bottom even though it's been raining for the past couple days. Any ideas on why that is or what I should do?

The peas are strangling each other, or embracing each other; I guess it depends on how you see it:

We have a green tomato and a bunch of flowers on the tomato plant:

We had one strawberry, but it totally rotted before it got ripe. I guess we won't be totally self-sustaining this summer.

The Weather

Lots of rain recently. The plants like it. But they also like sunlight.

2 weeks spent...

Repotting!

[Here is my cat Izzy digging in my parents' garden]

From Smoggy Basil

I had several lovely rounds of repotting to do:

1) Last Sunday, I took my store-bought basil and rosemary plants (! I know, I know...cheating) and repotted them into larger vessels. Before repotting and notice the mint plant in the Ziploc:

From Smoggy Basil

2) I pulled a mint plant from the ground at my parents' house and transported it into the city in between some damp paper towels so I also had to put the mint in a pot with dirt

[Sidenote: the mint at my parents' house comes from a long defunct Italian restaurant in Bedford, NY called Nino's. Nino's, towards the end, had mint growing everywhere outside its main steps. My brother and I - we were around 9 and 10, respectively, at the time - pulled a piece of a mint plant out of the ground and brought it home. The rest is minty history!]

[Sidenote 2: After Nino's closed and its building languished for a decade or so, Richard Gere bought the space and recently opened a new restaurant. Minty fresh celeb news!]

3) Today I snipped the Jiffy pellet mesh off my seedlings and put them into big girl pots with real dirt. Before picture is below; dill on the bottom right really grew during the last two weeks.

From Smoggy Basil

However, The seedlings look absolutely tiny in real pots and some have wilted over - I will post a picture of how puny they look next week. Any tips on what to give the seedlings that will make them react the way Popeye did to spinach? They need a little muscle!

The store-bought basil and rosemary have been adjusting nicely to their new and larger surroundings and the mint seems very happy in its new urban setting

Upside down?

Last week I asked Sarah a question - does it matter which way you plant the seeds? I know bulbs have to go in the ground the right way to grow right, but do other kinds of seeds? I vaguely remember something from 9th grade bio about how roots will always grow down.

However, I don't think this is the case. I planted some morning glories on Thursday before I went away for the weekend. When I came back last night, most of them had grown a few inches tall, but about 3 of the 12 grew with the roots coming up and the sprout going down. It was really creepy looking and I wish I had taken a picture. I actually took them out and turned them the right way around to see if that would save their confused, topsy turvy lives. I guess I'll see when I get home tonight!

In other news, I also transplanted my zinnia seedlings on Thursday. They did not look so good last night. It's really windy out on the terrace, so I think that may have hurt them. Also, the extreme heat and lack of water while I was gone may have been an issue. I hope they can be revived! If not, I have many more seeds to sow.

Some Pictures

Here are some pictures I took over the weekend.


The yellow tulips I planted last week have opened up. How much longer will they look this good? Another week or so, maybe?



Until then, I'll enjoy them.

You can't tell yet, but these are some marigold sprouts.

And one more photo. I think this will be a planter full of pansies. Right now, it is a lonely sprout.

Second Summer On My Terrace

Thank you inviting me to post on here. This should be interesting to see how everyone's plants turn out.

This is my second summer gardening on my terrace. Last year was mostly successful considering that I had no clue what I was doing and I got a little carried away with planting all sorts of different fruits and vegetables. I had:

• carrots


• cucumbers


• tomatoes


• hot peppers


• bell peppers


• strawberries


• basil


• mint


• rosemary


• blueberries


• a grape "vine" (with no grapes)


• watermelon


• and various flowers

These were all crammed into not enough or big enough containers. I had 3 tomato bushes to a planter, carrots growing next to cucumbers, jammed in with watermelons. Mid-summer I re-planted a lot of the veges and spread everything out. Even so, it was clear that carrots and watermelons aren't really meant to be grown in planters. The carrots were growing wrapped around each other and were all soft and small. They were edible, but no one wanted them. The watermelons wouldn't grow bigger than a baseball before they split open. There was approximately 1 melon-baller worth of melon inside. I was a little honored when a squirrel ate one of them (They're edible! Second though: How is there a squirrel on my terrace?). My bell peppers had some sort of genetic mutation and only grew on one half, the other half was this brown rottenness. No one ate them.

But, before you think things didn't go well, I had great tomatoes (very tasty beefsteaks), watery and tasty cucumbers (albeit slightly deformed as well), tons of hot peppers (too many), lots of basil, enough mint to make mojitos all summer, and perfect blueberries (picture below). The grape bush didn't produce anything (I think it takes some time for fruit) and it may have died over the winter, I can't tell yet. But, its days are numbered if it doesn't start growing leaves soon. There is no room in my garden for dead weight.

So, this year I'm backed with a scaled down vegetable garden after some lessons learned. I'm going for tomatoes (beefsteak heirlooms), cucumbers, strawberries, basil, and mint. The wild card this year is "ornamental gourds," which my girlfriend made fun of me for planting. Also back from last year is the blueberries bush (proven winner). I have various flowers seeded and some sprouts, but I can't tell yet if they are weeds (or "volunteers" as my Grandma calls them) or flowers. Time will tell. I have a day lily in a pot that my Mom gave me and some tulips on my back balcony.

Weekend of gardening

Thanks for inviting me to post Sarah!

The weekend was full of gardening activity. I took a trip to Home Depot and bought some window boxes, pots and lots of soil. I also bought some tomato plants and a strawberry plant. Those seem difficult to start from scratch. They came in degradable containers, so you just rip off the bottom and then plant the whole thing. This is a very "urban garden" picture of the tomato plant after I transferred it.

Last Monday I planted seedlings in the same pellets Sarah used. I got sprouts by Wednesday - first peas, then beans and zinnias. Now I also have basil and chives coming up. Today I actually see some jalepeno sprouts too. Saturday I transferred the beans and peas to some of the new planters I bought. Their roots were coming out of the pellet and I think they needed more space.

Pics!

Lo! Above are my sprouted Jiffy pellets, 7 days after planting. Started on the upper right corner and going clockwise (the 2 trays are planted identically)...

Garlic chive

Creeping thyme

Leafy dill

Mini basil

French pumpkin

Wild rocket

Help from the gray lady

Not even two weeks ago, the NYTimes published a helpful article on planning your terrace or roof garden:


http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/09/garden/09qna.html?ref=garden

Somewhat helpful in terms of plant selection, but more a more specific how-to guide would be amazing

Quiet week

This week has been devoted to germination: doing very little other than making sure that my Jiffy pellets were kept nice and moist and seeing absolutely nothing until....

I got a call late yesterday afternoon that my creeping thyme, wild arugula and mini basil had all sprouted! Yippee! I will be back in the city in a few hours to witness the sproutedness with my own peepers. I hope to post a picture as well

The sad news is that I have been most interested in getting some fresh dill up in smoggy basil land so let's hope this week is dill-riffic

Jiffy pellets instructed me to keep only the two biggest sprouts in each pellet. I'm not sure that I have the heart to weed out the smaller sprouts - after all, I am no giant myself and my husband is quite the opposite - but maybe Jiffy does know best.

I will keep you posted, dear readers.

On that very note: this blog may feature insightful posts from my friend and co-worker V who is similarly trying to garden in the urban jungle. As of late last week, her peas had sprouted but her herbs were as slow as mine to head towards the sun. She lives in a neighborhood far from mine and has her garden on her roof (!) so this will be an interesting growing season comparing both sun angles and garden locations

PS: When I googled 'germinating seeds' to try and find an apt image for this post, all the top images were instructions on how to germinate illicit seeds. Fascinating, but not the route I'm taking

PPS: I am also posting a picture of dill in an attempt to get my dill to sprout already

Welcome to smoggy basil!

Hello!

I am attempting to grow a basic herb garden on my NYC terrace. My thumb is in no way green and I'm relying entirely on the internet to figure out how to germinate my seeds.

Here's what I'm starting with:

1) Jiffy-7 pellets and mini greenhouse

2) Leafy dill, French pumpkin, wild arugula, garlic chive, creeping thyme and, of course, mini basil. I really just wanted the second word in each pair and have no idea if the first word is appropriate for what I want

3) A large terrace which faces south and gets plenty of sun

4) An awesome pair of gardening gloves

Following the directions on the Jiffy-7 pellets, I soaked them in water until they were an inch and a half high, then put 3 seeds in each. However, I must admit that the arugula and chive seeds were so tiny that I snuck in about a dozen extra. I put the Jiffy domes on to create the mini-greenhouses and stuck the seeds in front of a bathroom window to germinate

Am I growing the right things? Is this how one uses the Jiffy pellets? Should the 'greenhouses' be stuck in the closet to germinate in peace?

HELP!