Recently in Growing Category

While I've been a pretty boring person food-wise over the last few months but it has not dulled my love of ice cream.  Recently I found the Haagen-Dazs Five flavors.  I've had the Brown Sugar and the Vanilla.  The Vanilla is out of this world.  So so vanilla-y but not in an obnoxious way.  It has such a clean pure flavor.  Really lovely.  I can't want to try the Passion Fruit and the Ginger, two things I love.

All my tomatoes are dying because of the rain.  Most of the fruit has split and the plants themselves are rotting.  With this much rain, I should be able to start using the roof deck as a dock and charging mooring fees.

On the bright side, the watermelon is rocking!  Go watermelon!

Oh!  All of the plants are really starting to come into their own now.  The tomatoes are starting to ripen.  I have at least 3 eggplants coming in (1 purple, 2 white).  The peppers are popping out all over the place.  The blueberries are ripening.  The basil is booming and...  we actually have decent sized watermelons!!!  Ok, right now one is about the size of a softball and the other is the size of a tennis ball but it's still pretty impressive and cool.

Hhmmm...  my grape plants seems to be ninja masters at escaping death.  Whenever I threaten to chop them down for lack of production, they surprising sprout something new.  I think that perhaps I should threaten them every day...

Oh, this weekend we ate our first tomatoes from the garden.  There were two yellow pear tomatoes ready and they were uber tasty.  Now if only the rest of them would speed up a little.  Go Mr. Tomato Plants, Go!

Oh yes, the fruit is starting to appear.  I probably picked about 2 handfuls of raspberries this weekend and guickly gobbled them up and my tomatoes are slowly growing.  So so exciting.  I'm a little worried about the deluge of rain we've been getting since some of the leaves are turning yellow but since there isn't too much I can do about it, I suppose I shouldn't over-worry.

OMG!  Two raspberries are turning pink.  I'm not obessing.  You can't prove it.

Yes, the plants are taking off.  I'm very excited because so many plants are doing so well.  I would venture to say that everyone except for the grape plants are thriving.  The blueberry bushes have fruit on them and are just waiting to ripen.  Same with the raspberries.  The tomatoes all have flowers and the basil is kicking!  In fact, we bought yet more basil plants this weekend so that we won't run out and we got some Thai basil as well which I love for it's slighly spicy characteristics.  Oh, and J.P. got me some watermelon plants!  They are Black Diamonds and I have no idea at all if they will grow or not but heck, it'll be fun to try.  The recent heat has made everyone happy.  I'll have to remember to take more pictures.  Even the hen-and-chicks are flowering.  I just love it.  There is something so theraputic about going upstairs and sitting amongst the lush green plants and now I also have pink and orange too (yeah, I'm predictable about colors).

I think that I may have caught the bird that is killing my plants in the act!  I went upstairs early this morning to water and there was this black/brown bird pecking at the raspberry bush.  I popped outside and scared it.  Who knows for how long.... 

Yesterday was just the PERFECT spring day.  Got up and planted some jalapenos...  playing with dirt is always a good start.  J.P. got up and I bullied him upstairs to see my handy work which is when we discovered that I had a horrible plant mother!!!  I thought that three of my grape plants were dead but after closer inspection, they are still alive.  They are just much slower on the growing scale than the fourth one.  But I had already sacked their pots for other plants so they were sitting with naked roots on the deck.  We hustled out to the despot to get some more pots at which point, J.P. saw these great little orange flowers sitting next to begonias so I had to buy them and more pots.  So so exciting.

We went to Danvers (hurray for riding in the car on sunny days) and got some great steak tips and bacon and grilled up some Hungry Herb worthy sandwiches and had some sparkling rose and sat upstairs.  Then it was nap time and then it was relaxing time.  I was really so spoiled!  Pics incoming when I get home.

Yes, this weekend, we got our first two strawberries.  I know that it sounds kind of pathetic but there really is something wonderful about being able to eat something from your own garden...  even if it's just a small garden on the roof deck. 

I left work a little early yesterday since I've been early-in girl all week and after taking a small nap in the sun (hurray!), I decided to plant the rest of the Burpee shipment.  J.P. got me a mega bag of dirt on Wednesday.  There I was...  standing in the kitchen trying to figure out how in the world I was going to get the dirt to the deck.  After wrestling to get the bag upright, I shimmied it over to the fridge to stand it up and found an old office waste bin to transfer smaller amount into.  There is no way that I could have gotten that upstairs.  J.P. could have because he's strong and cunning.  I'm small and not so cunning.  He would have come up with me and the dirt wedged in the spiral staircase.

But drama aside, there were no additional deaths yesterday which I was pretty happy about.  I put in the rest of the alyssum since the sunflowers and cosmos are all gone and the rest of the tomatos went in as well.  I think that if it's nice this weekend, I'll put the jalapenos upstairs.  No idea if the habenaros will make it.  The eggplant might be ready to go upstairs too.  Hurray plants!

Or at least headless plants.  So the head removal continues on my deck.  I'm not so certain that it's squirrels anymore.  A lady at work suggested that it might be crows.  Either way, they are killing my plants and it's making me angry and sad.  One of my beautiful new tomatos was completely de-leafed.  Same with some basil.  One pepper plant is nearly headless and all the new cosmos are once again gone.  As of this morning I had:

Figs - 3 varieties
Niagra grapes - 4 2 1 4 plants
Raspberries - 2 varieties
Blueberries - 2 high bushes
Tomatoes - 3 2 yellow pear, 3 black krim, 3 super sweet 100s, 1 Mr. Stripey
Basil - regular and summer sweet
Habenaro peppers
Jalepeno peppers
Biker Billy Peppers - 2.25 plants
Chives
Eggplants - 4 varieties
Sunflowers
Cosmos - 2 varieties
Coneflowers
Columbine
Daisies
Alyssum
Hen & Chicks

 

Oh, what a wonderful package day it was today!!  Not only did get I get dress from JCrew and some new water bottles (one was orange!) but all of my plants from Burpee came in too!!  Woot!  I do have to admit that I made a small calculation snafu when I was ordering them.  I selected a quantity of one thinking that it was one plant...  not one order of three plants.  So I have more tomatoes that I had previously though of but regardless, they are all here and most of them are in pots.  I ran out of dirt so that cut short today's planting play.  I have also started putting some of the seedlings into pots.  I planted some sunflowers on Sunday in the rain and when I got upstairs today, all of their head of had been bitten off!  Clean off.  I think that it was squirrels.  Damn those squirrels!!  That hate my house!  Fair disclosure:  I had a squirrel issue a couple of years ago with sunflowers also.  One day I went upstairs and all of the heads of the plants where eaten off then too.  Some of the cosmos got eaten too but I figure that it's just the price of planting in the city.

Silly silly plant...

"Oh, we are little seedlings and so delicate...  the sun burns us so...."

Muhahahaha!  If you are not hardy, you do not deserve to live in this house!  Yes, the bigger plants are going upstairs this weekend whether they like it or not!

Day one of outdoor exposure for my sprouts... 1 hour of morning sun.  Happy to report, no deaths yet. 

Spring finally is beginning to feel like it's here.  All over the city, the trees are trying to bud and bloom and that means that it's planting time once again.  I'm not really sure why I like playing in the dirt so much but growing things on the roof deck is just a blast!  I've stared some seedlings inside and I've ordered some things from Burpee so hopefully, it will be a green roof deck filled summer.  Last summer was lovely but there weren't enough flowers.  Once I figure out how to upload pictures, I'll post the spout.  Here's what we'll have growing upstairs this year

Figs - 3 varieties
Niagra grapes - 4 plants
Raspberries - 2 varieties
Blueberries - 2 high bushes
Tomatoes - don't remember what I ordered
Basil
Habenaro peppers
Jalepeno peppers
Chives
Eggplants - 4 varieties
Sunflowers
Cosmos - 2 varieties
Coneflowers
Columbine
Daisies
Alyssum
Hen & Chicks

Yeah....  it's a lot.  I have four flats of sprouts right now.  Wheeeee!