eat make read

Ahhhh, gardening. My little fire escape garden has started to look a bit sad. The leaves are droopy and all together pitiful. There are a few bright spots though, literally. I picked my first tomatoes off my plants this past week. Two pudgy heirlooms, one of which seems to have grown a nose, and two cute round ones. I sliced up the two round ones and put them on a pizza over pesto and oh the glory. They were packed with flavor and just plain delicious.

I’ve picked a few peppers, but those are in the same sad state as the tomatoes. The lesson I’ve learned is find a community garden or stick to herbs if you live in a fourth floor walk-up. It will save you time, money and sweat. I think next year I’m going to let the farmer’s do what they do best and I’ll stick to the sage and rosemary.

Woohoo! Looky there. I’ve got two peppers growing at a rapid rate on one plant while the other pepper plants are little more stubborn and are holding out on me. On the tomato front, I’ve got about four tomatoes growing on one plant, two of which are golf ball sized and two are more blueberry sized. On my other tomato plant, the one that has super cute pudgy heirloom tomatoes, I’ve got two more golf ball sized fellows.

I think I’ve got the gardening bug now because I keep wanting to put more things out on my fire escape. This weekend I picked up some new pots while at ikea *sidenote, have you ever checked out their pots? so cute and so affordable*. I’m hoping to pick up some herbs at the market this weekend to fill them.

I’ll start with the bad news. There’s no tasty beverage this week. Boo! But now the good news, as you may have seen right up there (look past the slightly droopy flower on the right). Oh yeah… I just spotted two baby tomatoes on my plants. Aren’t they cute? My tomatoes and I have had a little bit of a rocky week because I can’t quite figure out their water needs, so I was beginning to wonder if they would ever reward me with fruit. And then, low and behold when I visited them this morning I found those two little beauties. My pepper plants are beginning to flower too. Oh happy day!

I hope you have a lovely weekend. If you visit your farmer’s market, please take a photo or two and post them to the market week flickr page. Market week here I come… woohoo!

Look at that! My tomato plants have turned into beasts and my little pepper plants are finally plumping up. I’ve gotten over my anger of buying the pots and dragging the dirt up my stairs and have now moved on the delight each time I look out our window and see my lush landscape. Oh, and check out the cute little blossoms popping up on my tomato plants:

Awww. They just make me happy.

Just to keep up on the tradition of asking you questions, do you think I can still put one of those cone things on my tomatoes even though they’re pretty big? I bought some special stakes to hold them up but the almost immediately shot past them by about 6 inches.

Holy Smokes! Are my plants growing or what? I can’t believe it, especially if you take a look at where they were two weeks ago! Between constant rain and putting fertilzer in my pots these things have turned into green giants. I even added more dirt to the pots but it doesn’t even look like I did. I’ve also figured out that two of the plants in my big white pots are pepper plants, so I’m down to two tomato plants, four pepper plants, one rosemary plant and the new addition of a sage plant. But now I have another question. Should I trim some of those leaves off the tomato plants? They’re feeling a bit bushy.

I’m feeling much better about my garden and I owe much of it to you out there who read my posts and give me advice, so thank you, thank you, thank you!

The plants are still alive and you may have noticed they are now at home outside. I have to tell you, I did not thoroughly think this project through. Did you know that tomatoes require a large space to grow? Yup, they do. Did you know that I have a tiny fire escape in which I planned to grow 50 tomato and pepper seedlings? Thank goodness only 6 survived. Another fun fact, “large spaces” means big old pots that need lots of soil in them. I live on the 4th floor of a walk-up building, so guess who hauled 80 pounds of soil up all those stairs (aaron was out of town). That would be me. Well that felt good, letting out some of that pent-up aggression towards my garden.

I’ve been very good at watering them since they’ve been outside. I’m still a nervous nellie that I’m going to kill them, actually even more so now because of all the work I’ve put into them. I don’t feel like they’ve made that much progress since they’ve been outside, but maybe I just need to be more patient. I’m keeping my fingers crossed, but also coming up with a back up plan in case they bite the dust.

Woohoo they’re still kickin! A few have even warranted a stick to help them stand on their own. Oh, and I added a whole new plant to the mix, a nice little sprig of rosemary. I’m still feeling pretty good about them but I do have a question if there are any green thumbs out there… I have 2 plants in some of the containers and one is bigger than the other. Should I sacrifice the smaller one to allow the bigger one to get more nutrients?

Oh how they’re growing up! Nine of my fiftish seeds are still kicking so I decided to treat them to a bigger and better space. I’d been saving big tomato cans to house them once they reached the right size. I labeled each can so I could remember which plant was which and then filled each with nice fresh soil. I just plucked the little pellet of dirt from the tray and plopped it into the can, making sure that each was nestled in the soil. Now I’m focusing on giving on giving lots of TLC to my strong seeds. I have a good feeling about these little fellows.

Ummm, yeah. My thumb is quickly turning from a proud green to an embarrased brown. What looked like a tray full of hopeful little sprouts two weeks ago is looking a little less impressive now. Turns out my brilliant idea to create a “greenhouse atmosphere” by putting the plants on the radiator wasn’t the smartest one I’ve had. Luckily I realized my mistake soon enough to save a few and it looks like I’ve still got a few peppers and a few tomatoes with hopes that some of the others will make a comeback. Live and learn (and then go to the greenmarket).