Starting to form fruits — yay!

Tags

apartment, gardens, Tomato Plant, urban garden

This could also be an Urban Post for the Weekly Photo Challenge even though I already posted photo this week.

Here’s picture of my tomato plant finally forming tomatoes — I’m so excited! I’m please to say that pretty much every item I’ve planted in my porch has been successful and it’s been hobby I’ve been doing for the past 8 months.

I’m finally fully recovered from my cold in other news..

Another lovely addition to my garden

Tags

chilli peppers, green thumbs, plant, urban garden

My red chilli peppers are starting to form flowers. This came from a seed — I thought this would never grow. I decided to transfer this pepper plant to my roommate’s abandoned Celosia plant box. The Celosia was dried and brown — in fact, it was so dead, I was able to pull out all the Celosias without any problem. That means there are no more roots.

I have some dying plants and dying wild flowers I want to pull out but it turns out their roots are still going strong so I’m going to give those dying plants another chance.

Anyways my roommate didn’t really take good care of the Celosias. Several times during the year, his plant kept dying because he never took care of them. Then when I got into gardening, I would take care of his plant and his Celosias came back to life. Whenever his plant came back to life he’d tell me “Thank you for taking care of my plants, so now you don’t have to take care of them anymore!”

I ignored his request and I still took care of his plant because at the time, I had 4 different plants to take care of, I didn’t think watering another plant would be a problem. So a couple weeks later he reminds “you don’t have to take care of them anymore. I’ll do it myself!”

So I follow his request and his plants would start wilting and turning dry again the next month. And then I would take care of his plants again and that’s how the cycle goes.

Well now since my roommate moved out two weeks ago and left his Celosias, rotting and abandoned. I decided maybe it’s time for something better and prettier to start expanding its roots.

Turning red…

Tags

Bell Pepper Plant, porch garden, Sequoia National Park, summer plans, Tomato Plant, urban garden

Last week, my friend who is moving to the Bay Area gave me her dwarf bell peppers and tomato plant.

Here is the dwarf bell pepper plant a week later.

My challenge is taking care of the tomato plant. The problem is that I live in the third floor and we get so many hours of sun. I placed it on the AC generator but the leaves kept drying, I then put it underneath the awning where it gets SOME shade during the day. It’s looking better…but I still need to trip the dried and wilted leaves so the tomato plant can form new, green leaves. Goods news is that it’s starting to form flowers.

But ugh! Thursday night, I’m going to Sequoia and I won’t come back until Sunday afternoon. Might give my tomato plant a lot of water before I go on vacation. I want to give it to my roommate but I think he’s got an unlucky touch when it comes to plants. After three plants later, they’re all dead. Maybe, I  can just hope for rain.

So yes, the other announcement is that I’m going to Sequoia for the weekend! Yay!

How has your summer been so far?

Growing garlic

Tags

apartment garden, garlic, porch garden, urban garden

Growing garlic from my porch and I’m happy with the results. Can’t wait to grow more! Can’t get any more local than from your porch.

Cute container garden idea

Tags

cactus, Container garden, succulent plant, urban gardening

Got this at the Little Italy Farmer’s Market on Saturday. The booth at the farmer’s market was called “Castaway Shell Garden.”

I’ve been wanting to buy some cactus or some sort of succulent plant but I’ve got so many seeds waiting to be germinated and potted.

Anyways this was an impulse buy and I thought it was a cute idea. Maybe when my wildflowers begin to germinate I’ll try to transfer to a shell

Tip: You can cut off off one of the buds and put it in another another pot. The bud roots itself in a new container and voila!

Update on gardening

Tags

Persian Buttercups, ranunculus, urban garden

So far we (me and the boyfriend) have been doing so much porch gardening. It seems like every week we’ve been buying new seeds or collecting new seeds. It started with only four seeds — basil, chives, cilantro, and green onion (note, need to redo the pictures…the link of the pictures seems to be broken 80% of the time).

The following week was wildflower seeds and blue bells.

The week after that was red chili peppers, spinach, red and green bell peppers, and persian buttercups.

Definitely been growing a lot more stuff. Here’s a picture of the persian buttercups bulb before I put it in a bag to germinate.

Dehydrated!

Here’s a picture of the bulb in a Ziploc bag with a wet paper towel after one hour.

Completely plump!

To try things out, I put a bulb directly int the soil just to compare but it seems like everything that has started in a plastic bag has germinated. I sure would like to try other things though.

In other news since my “backyard” is really a porch, I’ll design something to keep plants and vegetables together and NOT take up space in a 3 by 6 ft porch. I really am enjoying my urban garden experiment and I urge you to try to do the same.

Green Thumbs

So last year, Julie’s Christmas present was a garden. A while back she mentioned that she wanted to try growing her own vegetables. I wanted to make this a surprise but then I popped the question: “What kind of vegetables do you usually use?” This pretty much ruined the surprise. Me of all people should know since she frequently cooks for me. Shameful…

Anyway we decided to get: chives, cilantro, basil, and green onion. So far the project is going smoothly and it also has inspired her to grow some wild flowers. I also picked up another very unique plant that is known for eating bugs… the Venus Flytrap! I’m hoping it grows because I want to use it to ward off insects and birds if possible.

The cost for everything was pretty minimal. Less than $20. Includes the dirt, pot, seeds.

First step: getting the seeds to germinate. Here are some seeds that have been sitting for a week starting on 12/28/11 – 1/4/12

Here are some photos of some that we started a week prior to the picture above.

Basil at 2.5 weeks from 12/17/11 – 1/4/12

Green Onion 2.5 weeks from 12/17/11 – 1/4/12

Cilantro 2.5 weeks from 12/17/11 – 1/4/12

Chives 2.5 weeks from 12/17/11 – 1/4/12. The leaf is towards the bottom of the cup. You can kind of see it.

Present Day, about 20 mins ago….

These Chives were put into a cut up bottle to mimic a green house to protect it because its so small. We’re not sure if we can leave it outside yet.

Green Onions. Just like the Chives we kept these indoors to protect them.

You can definitely tell these are Cilantros.

Last but not least, Basil.

The wild flowers haven’t started blooming yet but pictures will be posted when they do. I hope the plants don’t get eaten by birds or other pests otherwise I would be sad =[. That Flytrap better work =p

I want to make a habit to take cold showers. It saves energy and it’s beneficial for your health . Honestly, I feel a lot better taking a cold shower.

Day 222

sorry! will catch up on all your posts and comments ASAP!

April 20th, 2010

We have so many recyclable in our apartment, I’ve been taking out at least one bag of recyclables per day before heading out to work. Got a long way to go though but I would hate making several trips between the second floor and the underground garage in a day so at least this clutter is more manageable–and it’s pretty much the only clutter in the apartment.

Day 137

Completed another thing on my list: #100 making compost