Tuesday, June 16, 2009
Urban Farming Urban Farming, Chapter 12: How's It Growing?
Posted by Carrington Fox on Tue, Jun 16, 2009 at 6:59 AM
Talk about watched pots never boiling, there should be a corollary for watched gardens never growing. So little was happening on my shady urban domain that I had given up my morning stroll along the vegetable bed and I was just about to throw in the trowel when, behold, the arugula sneaked up on me this weekend with a third growth.
Between the arugula, the mixed lettuces and the cilantro persevering under the shade of a hackberry, I harvested enough greens for four small servings of salad, which I tossed with avocado hunks, olive oil, apple cider vinegar, shaved parmesan and fresh black pepper. With the exception of a few bitter fronds, the greens were so thin and tender I thought they might dissolve on my tongue. What the salad lacked in bulk it made up for in freshness and flavor.
Surely no more life will emerge from that batch of seeds. Is there anything else I can start in that bed now, or must I wait to plant a fall crop?
Meanwhile, a few new signs of life are popping up--a single banana pepper and eight promising strawberries among them. The squash and okra--which are barely eking out six hours of sun--are growing but not thriving. Rosemary and mint seem very happy, and blueberry bushes are filling out--with leaves, at least. Tomatoes in pots in the sun are flourishing, while those in ground in the shade...not so much. A bean plant ferried home from kindergarten in a plastic cup stubbornly refused to die on the sill of a South-facing window over the kitchen sink, so we rewarded it with a pot of its own. We'll see if outdoor living helps Mr. Bean overcome his jaundice.
My one real question mark is the chard, which Fluffernutter handed over in a near-embryonic state and which sagged sadly under so much rain. At last, the leaves are peeling themselves off the soggy earth and reaching skyward, but I would have expected them to be much larger by now.
With the summer solstice upon us, how are your gardens growing?
Comments (7)
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Everything has finally taken off in my tiny garden. My tiny tomato is still slowly growing and starting to turn reddish-yellow. Both tomato plants are really getting taller and I may need new stakes. My pepper plant died a couple weeks ago, they are so hard to grow. All of my basil plants are huge, and whatever was eating them may have stopped now. My parsley finally took off. My dill plant is almost taller than my tomato plants. It's growing straight up and not out. I need a taller stake for it now. Is that common?
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My cilantro has never sprouted, but the dill is going strong. And transplanted basil and thyme are doing well, too.
The squash, zucchini and cucumbers are stunted. They bloom, then nothing. They're not pollinating like they should--no two blooms open at once! But the tomatoes (except the Ping Pong) have all got toddlers growing that have not yet been discovered by the squirrels.
Meanwhile, we have determined the gourds in the parking lot at work are pumpkins. And they're doing great! I need to post a pic soon.
I had a fabulous green pepper about the size of a ping pong ball...he was excited for life! He was the lone child of the healthy stalk of leaves and then tragedy struck. I came home to the little guy sitting on the deck floor, half chomped by some damn rodent, I'm sure. Said rodent left 3/4 of my sad green pepper. Must not have liked the taste of summer. Now there are no blooms, just healthy, baren leaves. C, you're right, I need a fake snake or ominous owl!
'Maters are looking great so far. Out of 8 plants, we have a solid 25-30 'maters that will be edible before July 4th. Raddishes are getting bigger everytime it rains. My beloved habanero plant acts like it was injected with steriods, grown 6 inches in a week (upwards and outwards). Basil looking good, mint is still questionable.
Be ware of wasps when it gets hot and dry, they like to hang around anything that has water (i.e. your plants).
Mixed lettuces have been bountiful, now getting a little bitter, Swiss chard and Red Russian kale still thriving. We're starting to get some tomatoes ( a couple of plants have blight, sigh.)Squashes are flowering---here's hoping fruit will form.
Noticed a little new potato bulging out of the earth, hurray!
Despite all efforts, the birds have been winning in the battle for the blueberries.
