putting farm and blog to bed...

the plants have senesced and bared their fruit for the most part... there are still a few things growing but essentially i've packed up and put away most of the farm for this year (that's what you do when you're a container farmer - you pack up).

it was a fun and entertaining season but i will grow things a lot differently if i'm still on this balcony next year. i wouldn't say that anything tasted better because i could pick it from my balcony. the tomatoes and strawberries especially weren't anything to write home (or blog) about. i liked having the herbs the most. next year i will grow A LOT more Cilantro, stick to cherry tomatoes, and try more sweet potato varieties (partly just because they are so pretty)!

in correspondence with the changing season (and lack of new content), i'm going to stop writing this blog and shift my focus back to this currently-neglected-but-more-art-related blog, Lucks VanJeet on Raymond Street.

i leave you with some closing pictures of the balcony/garden/farm's current state, transitioning into fall...

the last of the harvest. there's the ONE pickle that made it through. I have no idea what to do with it. should I go to the trouble of trying to pickle one pickle?

a late sowing of Basil and Cilantro.

Strawberries are still coming forth. The plants seem to grow MUCH better in a traditional container versus the Topsy-Turvy (Tacky) thingy I started with. Young, white strawberries look so neat.


A gang-busters crop of Chilies from just two plants... well, actually four plants in two pots... this is my chosen drying method (mostly because it pleases my eyeballs).

a root-ball from one of the tomato plants (not as root-bound as i thought it would be - still, bigger containers would be better for water retention)

handful of worm compost and worms. the worms seem to be thriving finally - this was a totally random scoop and there are lots of worms in there!!

giving the worms some new, fresh bedding. haven't really figured out what to do for the winter. i don't want them in the house for fear of mites. might have to build them an insulation-unit.

torrential rains. not easy to capture rain with a point-n-click camera so you know this was a super-hard rain!! also, a late sowing of salad-greens and green onions.

and lastly, the remainder of the garden all tucked into one little corner. hung some twinkle-lights to ward off the darkness of the coming days. also, some legit hobo-art imported from Halifax by east-coast-friends on a recent visit (not as technically proficient as hobo-art from the days of yore but heart-warming because of where it came from).

garden of late-summer delights

First the bad news:

That chipmunk has struck again! He found the newly potted pots and did a little potting of his own (or had a dance party?). This young Cilantro will soon be infested with bird-seed-weed in at least three locations. The Slyvetta and Basil face the same future.

But it's not all bad news...

Here is what happened with the only tomato plant I managed to grow from seed and then left in a dreadfully small pot all summer (plant abuser, I know). It has given us four tomatoes! Not bad for a l'il fella with the odds stacked against it!

Now on to the truly fantastic stuff:

The Sun-Flowers-That-Lived-in-the-Shadows-All-Summer have managed to bloom! Hooray for them! Troopers indeed!

(Side note: I wonder if BP got their logo from the center of a sun flower?)

(Second side note: After a long absence through the hot days of summer, THE HUMMINGBIRDS ARE BACK!!! They make me so bizarrely excited!)

The Green-Onion-Contraption seems to be doing the trick and the Spinach and Lettuce are well on their way!

And lastly, one of the culinary delights we made with stuff from "the farm", Stuffed Peppers! I know it mostly looks like melted cheese (that's why I always carry a good 10 extra pounds around people!) but underneath there are peppers (we grew) stuffed with rice (that we didn't grow - the balcony can hold a lot but probably not a rice paddy...) and tomatoes and chilies and herbs (all grown here).

YUM!

The garden/farm is winding down. It's kind of sad...

I think in the fall I'll have to put up some twinkly lights, set out the reclining chairs with piles of blankets, maybe find a fake plug-in fire, and make a cozy little retreat out there.

from head to toes

The sunflowers have finally formed flower-heads... and that is me in behind there... they are so tall I had to click blindly from below:

It's been awhile since I actually got soil on my hands out there. Felt good:

What was I up to? Planting some Sylvetta, Basil, Spinach, and Cilantro. The Sylvetta seeds came in the mail from a person I only met once and were a total surprise. Best mail day in years!

The Rainbow Swiss Chard was a retarded crop. I don't mean that in the un-politically-correct way. I mean, the soil was too shallow and it never grew very big. I dug a little plant up and was surprised by the long tap root.

It was still pleasant to have around because the colours were beautiful but today was time to harvest and make room for something else:

I'm not positive this will work but I decided to plant some of my green "Multiplier Onions" where the Swiss Chard had been. They grew so vigorously last time that I don't believe they will fail. However, to preempt the shallow soil problem, I planted the onions in containers (with the bottoms cut off) in order to get a couple more inches of soil below them. We'll see what happens. I also threw a bunch of spinach and lettuce on the soil around the containers:

The Chilies are plentiful and pretty. We've already eaten a few. They are HOT!


I loved starting a Pineapple a few years ago and had a really great plant for awhile... until my cat knocked it over from a high height and broke most of the leaves off. It rebounded well but then it froze when we moved across Canada in the middle of winter. Hard times for a Pineapple but it's still around, not thriving. I decided to start a new one but I couldn't quite let go of the old one. I re-potted it and will wait to see if it can make a come back.


When I was working on my onions, I knocked over this dish of Semps - again. I've knocked them over so many times. Poor guys. I re-potted with marbles just for something different.

(And there are my toes.)

technically it's not a pickle until you pickle it...

the one and only pickle (cucumber) is the most fascinating thing happening at the farm right now... is it trying to be a watermelon or something? what a weird plant. i think it's an alien.

also, i made yogurt! and it was really easy!

and then i also made labneh... which was even easier and even tastier!! ...but i did not take a picture of it.

pictures, for lack of much to say...

Still here, still growing...

Besides some minor "editing" of the garden (removing the old and rearranging the others, beating back the wilds and regaining some living space), there's not a lot to tell of these in-between days.

Just waiting for things to ripen and already planning how I will do things differently next year...

In the meantime...

A pickle is worth a thousand words:

Various green tomatoes:

The Sunrise Rose plant has bloomed again! Huzzah!

The earliest and ultra-est of the UltraGirl variety stands out in a profusion of green:

I remember having something like this around the house when I was small. I loved the fine mist it made and carried it around as a personal-cooling-device in the summer. I had to buy one when I saw them reduced by 50% at Chapters of all places (do they even sell books anymore?).

I'm not sure what plants need misting but once that's demystified, you can call me Ms. Misty:

The first yella-bellied Yellow Plum:

And the first of the Cherry Tomatoes:

These Dalias were $2 on the side of the road in Mennonite country:

The Spearmint has finally started to get somewhere. I think because I put a guard dog on patrol:

These tomatoes look OK from up top but turn them over and they're a sloppy mess. So sad.

But these ones are ready for eating (and in fact were eaten shortly after this was taken... our first tomatoes):

Trying to show what the garden looks like from inside looking out. Hard to tell from this but it's a lovely little retreat out there (now that it has been "edited"):

two peas in a pod

i let some of the peas stay too long on the vine and now they taste bad. the lesson is eat things when they're ready. don't try to hold on too long or you'll miss the opportunity and end up in a bitter situation. (the bleached out pod made for a nice picture though!)

determined not to let the same mistake happen with the beans, we eat them tonight!

a midsummer farm's scream

From down below, our balcony-farm looks like a green oasis amidst urban greys and browns. But friends, upstairs it's getting ugly; it's a jungle populated with questionable characters. Even the chipmunk has fled the scene.

The Delinquent:

A Marigold plant that buds but refuses to bloom...

(OK, it's true that I haven't given it much sun... there isn't room out there for everything to get sun. I probably need to scale back next year.

The Dearly Departed:

He died too soon that young pepper. The second of his kind to go. The really sad thing is, these little guys don't taste very good yet.

The Dregs:

Old soil in old containers from earlier crops of onions and lettuce... waiting to be recycled for more growing.

The Harassed:

For whatever reason, the cats LOVE to chew on bean leaves. Fortunately they have not done enough damage to prevent bean-growth... just enough to make it really ugly.

The Diseased:

Almost all the fruit on one of the tomato plants have this discolouration. "End-Blossom Rot"?? I'm not sure. Anyone know? How do I prevent it in the future?

The Tacky:

The "Topsy-Turvy" strawberry hanger has been a disappointment. The stems break when the fruit get too heavy. The berries are few and far between and not very tasty when they do appear (that could be the variety though). I didn't plant it full enough for it to look lush perhaps but that would have cost a lot, requiring 15 store-bought plants to fill it (my home-growns never really took off). And in less than one summer of use the actual container is bleached out and saggy-looking. It looks uncared for and tacky. So, big FAIL on this product, in my view.

The Casualties of Weather:

Some tomato branches didn't weather the storm.

The Weary:

Once promising pickles are shriveling on the vine. Maybe didn't get pollinated?

The Gone-to-Pot:

My cilantro didn't get very big before going to seed - but at least now I have Coriander!

The Tarnished-Reputations:

Not sure why some of the Chili Peppers are tarnished with brown. Hopefully they are just on their way to turning red... but I have my doubts.

The Deformed:

This little bean started to grown after the cats did a lot of damage - I think that's why it has failed to meet it's full potential as a bean.

The Refuge:

Despite all the problems, there remains one happy little corner of the garden; the Sweet Potato Vine, though unlikely to produce tubers (needs a longer season) is elegant and lovely to look at, the Chive-Gnome still makes me smile, the Aloe Vera stands on guard - waiting to heal any minor paper-cut or scratch, and the herbs are sturdy, green soldiers of flavour.