Strawberries and Broccoli!

So because apparently I can't even go into the grocery store without buying plants, we now have two strawberry plants, a lemon balm, and another Italian parsley. As you can see from the picture, we already have berries, so if we can keep the plant alive and squirrel free we should have fruit in a month or so. Kellie pointed out that the broccoli has a a couple of baby florets, so we actually have crops already starting!

A cumin seedling sprouted up as well, the morning glories are still growing like crazy and the tomato still looks good. The watermelon are suffering, I think they got a little dried out the other day but hopefully they'll pull through. I found a piece of a robin's egg in the broccoli I have no idea where it came from we don't have any nests near by (at least none I could see)

As you can see from some of the photos I also bought a bunch of chili flakes and I put them everywhere, nothing was eaten last night so fingers crossed this will keep the squirrels away. I think I have figured out the solution to keeping the plants in the sun without them falling off the deck as well.
I am going to get long planters and tie them to the deck rails and when the time comes to pot the watermelon and tomatoes into bigger pots they will go in the corners and be tied to the roof supports.

My whole blog isn't going to be all gardening but it will be a large portion of it especially during the growing season, it's my favorite thing to do in the whole world and if everything pans out the way I hope, I'll be making a career of it someday.

Garden Update

Nooooooooo!

Well the repellent didn't do much, the lavender was assaulted again and the verbena is almost eaten up and we lost two more watermelons. The chives weren't touched again (though I wonder if that was the squirrels they purportedly don't like onions)and I am wondering if the safety of the remaining watermelons is down to their position, ie they are hard for the squirrels to get at which means I might move some stuff around. If this keeps up I might no choice put to get some netting. Although doing a bit of research it says castor oil, black pepper, alliums, and marigolds can all deter squirrels as well. I could try smearing garlic all over the place that might help. Ah it looks like red pepper flakes are supposed to work really well so I know what I am getting at the grocery store tonight...cheap, eco friendly, and effective, win!

Now the good news is the morning glories are going gangbusters! I planted them in two stages so the newest ones aren't up yet, but the ones I photographed yesterday? Look at them now, that's a proper plant! I always heard morning glories were hard to sprout, these certainly don't seem that difficult at all, and in the wild they self seed very easily. I'm expecting some of the others to pop up by the time I get home from work tonight.

Not much to see here yet

The last thing I did was plant some temple orange seeds I got from eating some temple oranges, which are a tangerine/orange hybrid. They have a nice flavor which almost reminds me of grapefruit but sweeter. I am probably going to move them inside next to the seed starter on my windowsill but i need a water catchment tray to put under them first.  I honestly doubt I'll get any fruit off of them, this is just to see if I can get them to grow. My avocados did reasonably well despite being to leggy until the cats murdered them, the next time I eat an avocado I'll probably stick the seed in a glass of water and wait for the roots to appear.

Look at these babies it's amazing!

Someday when I am a famous and successful gardener I will have greenhouses devoted to exotics like citrus and avocados (maybe even coconuts!) But first I must defeat the squirrels!

The Garden Begins

Adam and Sons aka my new crackhouse

So now that I have some outdoor space to make a garden, a garden is being made. My roommate Kellie got some plants from work and her and I headed to our neighborhood garden center Adam and Sons to buy more plants and supplies. I already know this is going to be a dangerous place for me as I have already spent obscene (for me) amounts of money here! The only thing that stops me from buying *ALL THE PLANTS* is space and sun constraints (that and that whole pesky rent and food thing), I was tempted by roses, clematis, gardenias, basil, thyme, hot peppers, a ton of veg....things I didn't even know what they were but I knew I wanted! I know I will probably add some of the herbs to the garden at least but I want to see how the things we have are going to get on, we have already had a few problems which I will get into in a minute.

pre-squirrel garden

To start us off Kellie brought home broccoli, cauliflower, lavender, red sorrel, Brussels sprouts, chives, lemon verbena, French tarragon, fennel, Italian parsley, dill, and cucumbers. The dill and the cucumbers were both in bad shape when she brought them home and we lost the cukes and I'm pretty sure the dill has had it as well but everything else survived. At the garden center we picked up Sangria watermelons and a Brandywine Red heirloom tomato, they are Amish, date back to 1865 and are said to be the world best tasting tomato (We'll see.)

greenhouse seed starter

 I also bought a seed starter kit with a greenhouse top and some cumin, cilantro, jalapeno, and morning glory seeds. Most of the garden will be veg and herbs but I wanted to throw in some flowers and when I saw the Picotee Blue morning glories I knew those were the flowers I wanted. I was advised to nick the morning glory seeds and soaked them over night, and I am glad I did because they sprouted in the water and have actually started to poke above the soil! When the plants are big enough I plan to give a few to the guncles for their garden.

baby morning glories

So everything was going tickety boo until I went outside this morning and found disaster had struck! The parsley was a few green nubs where the leaves used to be, the lavender and chives looked chewed on and one of the watermelons was missing! As Matthew my other roommate had predicted, the squirrels found our garden and helped themselves! Well I couldn't let this go on so I headed back to the garden center to see what my options were. I was thinking netting but I found a natural repellent so hopefully that will do the trick, I don't want to get all Mr McGregor on their asses ;) And of course while I was there I needed to pick up some mint for my mojito flavored infused water. So I get to the mint section and I can't decide which mint I want, so I buy four of them, chocolate, apple, pineapple, and peppermint. I put them all in one pot that I am calling my mint garden.

Mint garden with four types of mint

I thought mint likes shade but all of them said partial to full sun so I hope they get enough sun on the deck. That's the other problem I think we will run into, lack of sun. I know they get quite a bit of morning sun, provided they are on the deck railings or the window boxes a former resident left behind, but I'm worried it won't be enough. The plants on the northeast side of the deck get some afternoon sun so I might migrate the whole lot to that side, my next step is to get those window box holder things that go on deck railings and then set the pots into that until they all need to be repotted. Not sure what I will do when they get bigger though, I'm already imagining rigging them up to hang down from the roof  and maybe tie the bigger ones onto the deck rail like some sort of horticultural shibari. It's all sort of an experiment, any failures will just be lessons learned, but it would be nice to get a crop of something for our efforts!