Growing Garden

The box that I planted the radishes and green onions in is finally totally sprouting and growing rapidly. It is nice to finally have some success starting things from seed on my own. While my father, mother, sister, and grandmother have wonderful green thumbs, mine is still developing. I think my biggest problems at the last apartment was the over abundance of extreme sunlight. I think I was literally frying some of my plants on the windowsill. The herb box is pure proof to me that some of my issues was the growing place I had at the old place. When I moved it over here there were aphids all over it and the plants were not looking very good. Now:



It was nice to make lasagna on Sunday and be able to walk out onto the balcony and get the herbs I needed right there. It was so nice to have that ability again since I seemed to leave that behind in Illinois. Now it is back, and I am again a happy cook! The only thing that is not thriving in this new place is the rosemary. I think it needs yet a bigger pot than the one that I bought for it. Hopefully it will last for a little while before I start bugging Dan to take me out for more dirt and another pot for the poor dear. Things are also starting to flower, which has me excited to see what will pollinate and start growing.



The jet star tomato suddenly started growing by leaps and bounds and now has several large flowers. I have been supplementing the breeze by also blowing on the flowers to make sure they pollinate. I would love to have some fresh tomatoes at my disposal soon. There is also a flower on the pepper plant:



While the plant does not seem to be growing that tall, I hope that it does fine making some peppers. I would hate to lose a plant due to it blooming itself out. There are also several flowers on one of the cucumber plants that does not seem to want to grow into the trellis. Hopefully it does not break off when it tries to tendril out onto the porch. The zucchini plants are also looking quite robust, and I can see some buds starting to form. Hopefully they flower soon. I am not sure if these are wind pollinators, but I hope so. I don't see many insects or bees around to pollinate these plants here in the city. The beans are turning into quite the bramble as I feared. We will see if they yield anything or if I need to try next year with thinner plantings.



The lemon tree is doing well, even though we have yet to drill the drain holes in the pot. The lemons are starting to grow in size and I hope that we get a good yield from this as well.

Today is filled with trying to hurry to finish the birthday gift for Craig. As it is, I will be pushing getting it to them on time since there is the holiday weekend this week. That means, it must be finished today and walked up to the post office rather than scheduling a pick up for tomorrow. I will take pictures when it is finished for you to see tomorrow... I promise! I also have to run some shoes back to UPS for an exchange for Dan and get some work done for my upcoming trip to Idaho for Belegarth's Chaos Wars. There is so much to do, and I am off to get it done! More tomorrow!