Hhhhhhherbs

One of my favorite comedians, Eddie Izzard (who is British), says, "We call them h-h-h-h-herbs...because there's a fucking 'h' in it!"

Our h-h-h-h-h-h-herb pot is doing quite well. I recommend planting in a fairly large size pot and mashing them together a bit instead of doing individual pots. It retains moisture better and I think it's more attractive, but either way growing herbs is a great idea. Here we have from front around clockwise: thyme, lemon verbana, tarragon, rosemary, and parsley, with a cherry bomb hot pepper plant in the middle. We also have sage and oregano in another pot, and mint, chives, and basil in their own respective pots.

I recommend basil, mint, and chives being in their own pots. Basil I like to grow several plants and so they have enough root space to get the most harvest out of them (I freeze for Winter), I plant in separate ceramic or plastic pots. Both mint and chives have a tendency to take over whatever pot they're in, so I give them their special areas. Once you buy chives, you will never have to buy them again. You can bring them inside for Winter or leave the pot outside and they will reappear next Spring! Basil and mint will die off in the cool weather, but I believe you can bring mint inside as well if you want year round.

Growing tomatoes- early July report

Our Husky Cherry Tomatoes and Early Girl Tomatoes are ripening and beginning to be eaten (by us!). These tomatoes are so flavorful off the vine... every year I wonder if it's worth the effort to grow them ourselves and as soon as I taste them, I know it definitely is.

-Tomatoes need a ton of water. Like gallons/day so DO NOT OVERCROWD THEM. The more soil they are in, the more moisture they retain between waterings. Also, their root systems are large and they do not like to share ground space with another plant. 
-We have ours in self-watering containers which I highly, highly recommend if not in the ground.
-They need 6-8 hours of sun/day. If your garden doesn't get that, forget about growing tomatoes.
-Buy small seedlings after the last frost and plant outside in containers with potting soil mixed with compost, watering regularly and fertilizing with a liquid seaweed fertilizer every two weeks.

Wait and see how pleasing it is to watch them shoot up and have those green fruits ripen to a succulent red! Grab some basil from your herb pot and buy some bufala mozzarella. Slice on a plate with olive oil, balsamic, salt, and pepper...et voila! Perfection.

 Look at how many tomatoes are getting close to being ripe on our plant! We are going to be giving them away at this rate.

Early Girl tomatoes are not super big, but they sure do grow quickly and ripen well. I'll update on taste later!

Pruning Petunias

So I planted two petunia plants in old mailbox tins at the beginning of Summer and they have done SO well. They are the perfect Summer decoration flower. They require very little maintenance, although are not maintenance-free, and will provide you with months of gorgeous blooms if properly cared for.

I got one deep purple petunia plant and one mixed- love them both! But mine began to get leggy and not look as full after the first month so I looked up on youtube.com how to prune a petunia. Besides being a pleasant catch phrase- say 'prune a petunia' three times fast- the pruning worked! Where I used to only have blossoms at the end of my petunia stalks, they are now blooming with abundance and look full and lush again. Here's the video that I followed and below are the photos of my once again bushy plants. The basic pruning strategy is to a) deadhead; and b) pinch off the very top bud forming on the end of each petunia stalk. This will stimulate the plant to letting the buds lower on the stalk to form into flowers. Worked for me!

My garden, overview

It's a long process to have a productive garden. It's extremely worthwhile, but it takes planning and a lot of revision as you go along. To help explain why I have what I have, I thought it would be helpful to show you the current state of my garden. These are not going to be the lovely photos that are often in gardening books. These are photos of my garden in early July, with a lot of sun and heat and water  only when we break out the hose.

This pot has herbs and a Cherry Bomb hot pepper plant in the center. There is lemon verbana, tarragon, rosemary, parsley, and thyme growing in this pot. They seem to be pretty happy. We had a large crop of cilantro in the Spring that went to seed as the weather warmed up.

This is our bell pepper plant potted in a plastic 5-gallon (?) pot. I would prefer a slightly larger pot, but you work with what you have. I've had more than one bell pepper plant in previous summers but the major lesson I've learned in having a potted garden is: grow less in larger pots that are better cared for.

Bell pepper plants are hard to get to produce a lot, at least they are for me and I've read as much too. They, like tomatoes, cucumbers and other water-heavy veggies, require a constant supply of water. I would recommend using a self-watering container (I'll post about how to make those separately). We were not that organized this year, but I'm hoping to do it next year.

Here you can see the very beginnings of a bell pepper forming. Where it blooms, it will produce little bell peppers. The challenge is in the Summer, keeping it very well watered so the peppers grow to a decent size.

 Another shot of the bell pepper plant. We put pieces of wood in the pot to discourage our lovely felines from using it as a toilet.

 This is our Bluecrop blueberry plant. It has already produced many berries that have been ripening for a few weeks. We've gotten several gatherings' worth of bluberries that are delicious. This is the first year it has really produced fruit and our 2nd year of having it. I would love to re-pot it in a larger pot, but we used what we had this year and it does seem to be happy. I haven't pruned it at all yet. It turns a gorgeous red in the fall and the leaves fall off for Winter.

This is our Bountiful Blue blueberry bush- the newest addition to our garden. Blueberry bushes like to cross pollinate, so we are hoping for a larger crop next year from both. This bush did not produce fruit as it's a young bush and is the first year in our garden.

This is our Husky Cherry Tomato plant. We have planted it in a self-watering container that we made out of two plastic buckets from Home Depot. Self-watering containers are almost a must for tomatoes, I have found. They require so much water you'd have to soak them daily in the Summer to keep them hydrated. It's much easier with a self-watering container. You can see the white pipe leading down to the reserve of water underneath the plant.



Here are some ripening husky cherry tomatoes. These cherry tomatoes are quite large- the size of a quarter or larger- and this is my first year growing them. I find that cherry tomatoes are a great plant to grow in containers. One plant usually provides me and my husband with a steady supply of tomatoes throughout the Summer. We've had more than one plant in previous years and it was overkill.

This is my chocolate mint plant, potted in a 1-gallon plastic pot. I recently trimmed it back because I'd ignored it for a couple of weeks and it had grown quite leggy with few leaves on the lower ends of the stems. You can see it's starting to grow smaller leaves to make a fuller, bushier plant, which is what I want. I use this in desserts and cocktails. It's one of my favorite things to grow. I am freezing leaves for the first time this year.

This is my cucumber plant. You can see a scraggly cucumber growing here. I just plucked our first full-sized cucumber a week ago and I have to say, it was the best, crispiest, freshest cucumber I've ever had in my life. This plant produces smaller cucumbers - 3-4" in length - that are crisp and perfect for pickling if you're into that. This plant also needs a LOT of water and is in a self-watering container. Right now, it's not looking so hot for two reasons: we just finished painting the trellis that it will grow on so it's been growing wild so far which I don't think is ideal; and two, I haven't watered the garden in three days which is too long in 90F heat, even with a self-watering container.

This crazy mess is our Early Girl tomato plant. Early Girl's produce medium sized tomatoes and are excellent choices for potted tomatoes. You can't tell from this photo, but it's grown so well and has so many fruits on the vine that I've had to use three supports to keep it upright. The tomatoes are just starting to turn an orangey/yellow. This is my first year trying out an Early Girl plant.

 Some Early Girl tomatoes begin to ripe.

 Here you can see the tomatoes are beginning to turn colors. Can't wait to eat them!

This is our fig tree- also a great choice for a potted garden. The fig tree likes to have its roots bound and this one has grown steadily for the past two years. Its fruit ripens in mid-to-late Summer and they are dee-licious.
We had a modest crop last Summer- I'm hoping to get more fruit from it this year because we re-potted into this 20-gallon galvanized steel trash can and composted this Spring.

Fig trees can survive the Winter outside which is a big plus when growing it in an urban environment.








You can see the unripened, green figs here growing and getting ready to ripen in about a month or so.

This is our Japanese maple, purely decorative, of course, but changes to the most vibrant red in the Fall and Spring. We recently re-potted it in a 20-gallon steel galvanized trash can and I'm hoping it will grow a bit larger. It is a dwarf strain, since a full-sized tree would not thrive in a pot. This one seems to be doing very well. It has survived outside for two Winters and come back strong!

This is our lime tree, also recently re-potted in a 20-gallon trash can and is producing limes for the first time in two years. It's a dwarf variety as well and needs to be brought inside during the colder months. All citrus will not survive a frost.

Lastly, these are our pole beans. This my first time growing beans and I'm excited to see if it produces. I grew these from seed inside very early Spring (because we had such a mild Spring I decided to start early in early March). Then I planted them outside in this rectangular pot that is also self-watering with a trellis. We had a cold snap after I'd planted them and I thought I might lose them, but they bounced back and appear to be growing up the trellis well. I have not seen a single bean yet though, so we'll see.

I chose pole beans vs. bush beans because pole beans, although they grow bushier and taller and need a lot of support, they continue to produce throughout the Summer, whereas bush beans will produce for a while and then you need to re-plant.

Thanks for stopping by- I'll post more on how to get started and what the very basics are for an urban potted garden. Happy Fourth!

Mildew on my peony

A few weeks ago I noticed a white, powdery mildew appearing on one of my two peony plants. I adore my peonies and it took two years for them to bloom (I had planted them in pots that were too small) and then they bloomed with big, beautiful blossoms and one got sick.

So I looked up online a home treatment for them. I just sprayed the sick one (I separated them when I noticed the mildew so the other one would remain healthy, which it has) and I'll keep you posted. The advice I found said to spray the affected plant with equal parts 1 Tbs canola oil, baking soda, and dish soap (without bleach) mixed with a gallon of water (not on super hot sunny days). Apparently, the mildew is cause by a fungus which can thrive in, but does not need, moist, shady conditions.

I'm hoping it works. I will post below the blooms that appeared just in time for my baby shower a few weeks ago! Gorgeous.

In general, peonies like a lot of room, acidic soil, and well-ventilated areas with lots of sun. These plants can last you many years, if properly cared for with watering, sun, and fertilizer, and produce the most beautiful, lush blooms in the Spring. They grow from bulbs and will have bushy green leaves the rest of the year until frost when you cut them back and let the stalks die. The leaves absorb sun throughout the rest of the sunny season, providing nutrients for the roots.

Freezing basil

I grow about 3 basil plants each Summer and try to forage as many leaves as possible so we have a supply to last us all Fall, Winter, and early Spring. I plant our basil plants in pretty large ceramic pots- I like ceramic because it traps moisture much better than terra cotta and I'm wary of growing food in plastic pots (although I do that sometimes too).

The pots I use are anywhere from 5-12" across at the top. I mix potting soil with compost and plant as soon as I think we are well past our last frost.

As soon as the plants appear leggy or begin to have large leaves worth storing or using, I take out one of my favorite tools- the herb scissors. I often cut the tops off the plants to encourage bushy growth or if the plants are already bushy, I will harvest about 1 large leaf per set and take leaves from the top of the plant, not the bottom.

When I have a good amount of leaves gathered I rinse, pat dry and then use the herb scissors to shred the basil onto a paper towel. Mark a freezer bag with the name of the herb and the month I'm freezing it (you'd be surprised how quickly you forget and once things are shredded they look the same!). Then push as much air out as I can and pop in the freezer! I will repeat this process until I have enough frozen basil to last us through the colder months. I find it's easier to use if pre-shredded.

Today's bounty & a start

Today I collected one small cucumber, a bunch of blueberries, and a lot of basil from my garden. You may not guess that I live in Brooklyn, NY.

I'm not an expert, but I've read a lot of books on urban gardening and would like to share with you my successes...and failures...at having homegrown grub here in the metropolis of New York.

My first photo of bounty!

More photos of things that I am growing...


Blueberries began to ripen about the 3rd week in June. The trick to getting a maximum yield of blueberries is to have more than one kind of bush in your garden- they need to cross pollinate! Wish I'd read that the first year we had our bush. I'm pretty sure this is a Bluecrop bush... and we just added a Bountiful Blue next to it which is much smaller.

Chocolate mint to be frozen. This mint is so delicious on desserts and in cocktails. Easy to grow, although I recommend growing it in a pot separate from your other herbs and plants...mint takes over a pot easily and will crowd out other plants. Likes part shade - full sun and consistent moisture. I have a very sunny terrace so I water frequently and will put a plastic dish under this pot to collect and hold water during the driest Summer months.

This is our Husky Red Cherry tomato plant! These are large cherry tomatoes. I just ate my first one off the vine and it was soooo good.

This is an Early Girl tomato plant that has TONS of green tomatoes on the vine.

We have a dwarf lime tree, and have had it for two years with little to no success at producing limes...we re-potted it about a month ago into a 20-gallon galvanized steel trash can, added compost and fresh soil... and here comes the largest lime we've seen yet!

I love roses. This bush I trim back severely in the Fall and compost in the Spring...my reward!

Ripened fresh blueberries are hard to beat.