Square Inch Gardening Part Eleven

Everything's growing.
We had onion chives on baked potatoes with sour cream the other night.
Also harvested more arugula, and some of both parsleys to chop up and add to salad.
I took some new photos yesterday.

I've taken the nasturtiums out of the greenhouse and potted them.

The climbing peas are flowering.

The raspberries are flowering & setting fruit.

The peony is recovering nicely having been a rescued bare root from our old property.

One of the eggplants has a pretty purple flower.

The stevia is flowering and I need to remove the flowers to keep it useable in cooking.

The three different tomato plants are flowering.

The blueberries are flowering and setting fruit.

The strawberries are flowering and setting fruit. I've already harvest 3 strawberries (1 for the neighbor kid who helped me plant them, 1 for her brother, and 1 for me. :)

And last but not least, the white fuschia is FINALLY starting to bloom!

More later!

Square Inch Gardening Part Ten

The excess rain we had in the last week or so caused some problems for the herb pallet. We had to construct a makeshift rain cover for it.

Evidently, it was too little too late for the spicy globe basil - it developed root rot. Thus, I picked up a replacement start and an additional Siam Queen Thai Basil. Note how wilted the original is in comparison to the replacement.

 

                Spicy Globe Basils

                                         
               Siam Queen Thai Basil

Other than that, I have begun harvesting a little ....

a few leaves of arugula for salad the other day. I cut three new ones today for my sandwich at lunchtime.

Here's a little tidbit just for fun ...

http://www.motherjones.com/tom-philpott/2013/05/how-i-got-hooked-weeds-and-why-you-should-too

More later!

Square Inch Gardening Part Nine

I left out some things from Part Eight ...

Our potting bench, some of the tools and mini-compost bin behind the apartment.

In a month or so, we’ll be doing something with the remaining portion of the “mud hole.” Before we do, we’ll need to level it a bit, probably by getting some dirt to spread around and fill in. We’re considering throwing some rolled sod on it once it’s leveled. Don said we’ll need a new weed trimmer attachment for his Ryobi when we do.

More to come later. 

Square Inch Gardening Part Eight

This part is a mix of plants that were here when we moved into the apartment and some miscellaneous items.

When Don and I moved into the apartment last June, there were three rose bushes in front of our apartment that were in dire need of care. Don has been grooming and caring for them since we moved in. He’s made a powder from dried eggshells to spread around the bases of the roses. Here’s how they look now …

 

We also rescued a small bare-root chunk of a huge yellow rose that the city had a landscaper pull up from the front of the apartment property on the city’s right-of-way. We planted it near the south side of our back yard. When planted, I filled the hole around the root with Miracle Grow Garden Soil, and Don has given it the dried powered eggshell treatment. It’s recovering nicely (everything green on it is new growth since planting).

For our cats, I purchased Cat Grass seed from Fred Meyer and put it into the planter I had for that purpose. It’s in the mini-greenhouse temporarily due to the excess rain we’ve been having. Also in the mini-greenhouse are some seed starts of Nasturtium flowers which I started yesterday and some peat-pots that I’m letting dry out due to failed seed crop. I emptied the pots into the mini-compost bin Don and I created from a fair-sized heavy plastic produce box he acquired. We put some left-over gardening cloth inside it to keep things from falling out.

As to why I've been referring to all of this as "Square Inch Gardening" is that the main vegetable garden bed measures 162 by 49 inches. 

That's all for now, at least until things begin flowering and producing.