Mother Nature steps in...

In one of my first posts, I worried that I would drown my plants. It turns out, Mother Nature is doing her best to do it for me. We've had only four sunny days in the past 2-3 weeks, and most overcast days have had either a drizzle or downpour associated. I've been surprised to see the wide range of responses. The tomato plants seem to love it - all three have overgrown their pots and have dozens of small yellow blossoms. I tied the heirloom plant to the balcony (with a leg from a former pair of tights) just this past weekend for support and hopefully to encourage it to grow away from the other plants instead of over them. The Patio plant shouldn't need staking/support, and I'm keeping my eye on the Sweet 'n Neat (who names these things?), but so far it is holding its own weight. There's really nothing to do with the tomatoes, as they have needed no tending, but I still like to play around with them simply for the way they smell. They smell like earth and green, and just one whiff reminds me why I've been aching for a garden for the past five years.

Two of the tomato plants. The Heirloom is on the left. This was two days before I strapped it to the balcony, as it was starting to take over the other tomato (the Sweet 'n Neat) and the strawberries on the other side. Not sure if you can see the flowers in this shot - I'll get better pictures!

The other plants that seem to enjoy the rain are the sugar pea plants. All three seem to be surviving, although one is definitely the runt of the litter and may end up getting beaten out by its bigger siblings. While the peas can't beat the tomato plants in scent, they are more interactive. I like to take the little green shoots and curl them around the homemade lattice. The next day, the plant will have taken initiative and wrapped around the string several times, where even a fairly strong tug can't disentagle, and be off in a different direction. I still have no idea if I'll actually get any peas from them, but we'll see.

The pea plants have actually recovered nicely from their precarious repotting. We've reached a tentative mutual agreement in which they've agreed not to be angry at me about it.

The strawberries have been a mixed bag. I have managed to snag a few tasty red ones from my container with only strawberry plants, which make me feel quite triumphant. However, I'd had to throw out just as many berries as I've eaten. Unfortunately, all the extra moisture and sitting water in the container makes the berries quick to rot, sometimes before they've turned more than just a light pink. It's sad to have to throw them away, but I am trying to be more vigilant about catching them before they go bad.

My very first strawberry from the balcony. Others have tasted better and been prettier, but this was my first. They say you never forget your first (and now I won't, because I have this blurry, crappy picture to remember it by).

The strawberry plants that have not been as ill affected by all the rain - complete with ripe berries, unripe berries, and even some flowers.

The other planter with strawberries has not been faring as well. Even when we had three straight days of sunshine, the soil never dried out, and it's taking its toll on all the plants in the container. The strawberries - which even when I purchased them were a little sad - were starting to cheer up, but stalled out since the rain started 3 weeks ago, and now the new sprigs are starting to die.

This was actually taken on day three of sunshine, after the second bout of rain and before the current third one we are enduring. You can see that even three days of sunshine isn't enough to get rid of the standing water around the plants.

The pepper plant in the same container is starting to yellow and droop a little, and the herbs have remained static. I'm fairly sure that thyme and rosemary, at least, prefer a drier soil (I'll have to look up sage, but it also doesn't seem to be inclined to grow). I'm deeply regretting not putting rocks or a better drainage system in place, but I had no idea that Boston would have a monsoon season this summer.

I am behind on my posts and have many more updates, including weekend baking frenzies that have led to as many as six recipes in a day as well as my dog deciding that organic fertilizer is pretty tasty stuff. But for now, I'll just hope that Mother Nature decides to give my plants a day off tomorrow (current forecast: no rain, but heavy cloud cover).

Outings and Plantings

I made it to Haymarket this weekend, although I still haven't used the berries and limes purchased there (I had hoped to make a raspberry/blackberry lime tart but ran out of time in the weekend - the berries are surprisingly still good in the fridge, so mayhaps this evening!). However, I still wanted to share some of the pictures. It's a full city block of tents, with most selling fruits and vegetables. There are also at least two seafood tents, as well as some storefronts that face the tents and sell cheese, bread, and various meats. It was a perfect day to be there - cool and sunny. I've never been there when it wasn't shoulder-to-shoulder traffic, and unfortunately the pictures are not able to capture the noise and chaos of the place. I love going not only because it's the cheapest fruits around, but also because in my opinion, it's one of the most wonderful, lively events in Boston.

Strawberries! No more than $1.50/box (prices vary according to vendor, so it's always a good idea to scope out the entire market for quality vs. price before purchasing).

Some booths let you pick out your own, while others select for you. Obviously I prefer the former, so this is something else to check on before buying.

One of my favorite occurrences - the vendors will cut open some of the goods and put them on display, so that you can see how ripe things are. These mangoes were tempting at only $5/box, but I couldn't come up with a use for 10+ mangoes.

My first attempt at capturing some of the vendors unawares. I had quite limited success - I think they are accustomed to watch lurkers closely.

Did I mention stuff is CHEAP here?

One of the meat stores that lines the outer edge of the market. Some of the crabs were crawling around on the ice. Freaked me out, but hard to argue about the freshness.

If I ever need raw sugar cane I know where to go...

My second semi-successful attempt at capturing a vendor portrait. He had the accent of a true Bostonian and the facial hair of Seneca Crane.

Unfortunately I didn't make it back before 4 pm, at which point my plants were in shade and I wasn't sure when it had occurred. However, on Sunday I was able to determine that the first hints of sunshine hit my plants at 8:20 am and by 3 pm the sun has moved to the other side of the building (where it should be hitting my seedlings, now set in the front window). So they are just barely hitting their "minimum" six hours of sunshine, but they are making it! Good news.

I repotted my pea plants last night. As mentioned earlier, they had been growing great guns, but stalled out over the weekend. I needed to make/buy some sort of lattice, so on Friday I grabbed a few tall sticks from decorative pots on the medical campus. They had been there since before Christmas, so I figured they wouldn't miss a few. I had my camera out on Saturday morning when I went into lab to capture what I had stolen from, but the landscapers were there, removing the decorations and putting live plants in the pots. Great timing!

The tools. The colored sticks with some offshoots were much taller than I needed, but were serviceable after cutting. I do wonder what they originally were before being stuck in a pot for winter decorations.

 I was horrified when I pulled up the pea plants to repot them to discover that the roots were dripping wet. So I will be holding off on watering the rest of the tray for a few days to let them dry out. I have no idea how the lattice will work - I definitely don't get any points for presentation, but I wanted to give the plants options on where to grow.

The final product. It's a little sad looking, I know.

I checked the pea pot out on the balcony this morning and nothing has fallen down yet, so that's...good? I'll see how it holds up in the rain the next few days. I also checked the rest of my plants, as it had gotten down to just a few degrees above freezing several nights in the past week (I had read how several farms outside the city had been going to extremes to protect their crops, but luckily I am well within the urban heat island of Boston itself). I was pleased to see a strawberry with a slight pink tint, as well as at least one white berry on each of the other three plants I first bought.

Definitely pinkish. I plan to eat it as soon as possible.

I also found the first flower on one of my tomato plants (the Patio strain), although the angle made taking a picture rather challenging.

It's blurry and hard to see, but in the center there is a spot of yellow - that's a flower! I had to hang out my window at a most precarious angle and hope that I got a shot, so this was the best one.

Finally, I was thrilled to see new growth on the two strawberry plants I bought on my second trip to Home Depot, as they had been rather large question marks. So currently it looks as if all my plants are heading in a positive direction!

My two sadder strawberry plants. On the right there is fresh growth in the middle of the three leaves, while the one on the left has new growth as sprigs underneath two of the current leaves.

Playing in the potting soil

My triumphant homecoming from Home Depot left me with three tomato plants that I planned to put in individual pots, but I had only purchased two. Great math skills. But it was Saturday night, I was home alone - I decided to go large and at least repot what I had. I ended up with two tomato plants, each in their own large-ish pot, and a rectangular planter with all four of my strawberry plants.  Upon the repotting, I was disappointed to find that I had accidentally picked up only two varieties of strawberries, so I had three Quinaults and one All-Star. Oh well.

In a few short weeks, all of these will be mine! Because my plants are magic.

It seems there's a lot of guesswork that goes into starting a garden. Or at least there is when one is too eager (read: lazy) to take the time to look things up online. I was concerned when I only used about half the bag of potting soil after repotting the tomatoes - according to the bag, it was enough for two 12-inch pots, but I had used significantly less. Then again, the bag also said to fill each pot up only 1/3 of the way before adding the plant, and I had done at least half - otherwise the poor plants would have been completely covered in dirt. The tomato plants did have instructions to bury them 2/3 into soil. I probably did about half, as I was concerned about suffocating them - don't they need their leaves exposed for photosynthesis? But really, one man's half is another man's two-thirds. Fractions are tricky entities. Aside from the number of seeds per cell covered earlier, the other guesswork was how close to put the strawberry plants. The label claimed to put them 18 inches apart. Sounds nice, but when I only have approximately a five by two foot area to play with on the not-really-a-fire-escape, I couldn't afford to put two plants per rectangular planter. Or I could have, but I would've had to return a lot of my seeds and plantlings. I thought they looked nice about six to eight inches apart. This may be another decision that comes back to haunt me later this summer.

Plants on the balcony the morning after. Heirloom tomato on the far left, strawberry plants in the back on the right. Grow, little plants, grow!

By the end of the process, I felt like a real gardener. I had potting soil all over my apartment floor and under my nails that no amount of scrubbing could erase. The first real sign of spring! Before putting the plants out on the balcony, I saturated the soil of all of them, as there had been no instructions. I was grateful that I splurged on the soil that wards against over/underwatering. My husband, knowing my ability to kill houseplants via drowning, had already warned me against the dangers of overwatering. It's an unfortunate illogical cycle that never gives the plants a chance. I fuss over the plants and sometimes see a brown leaf, which could be due to a multitude of reasons. I resolve to water the plant more often. As more brown leaves pop up, I add more and more water, concerned that the plant is drying out when most likely I am rotting the roots. Then the bugs set in and I end up throwing the whole mess in the trash. I plan to set a strict schedule for the garden to avoid this exact end.

The fate I hope to avoid handing my plants this summer.