Friday, April 11, 2014

Seeds for a new beginning -- Garden Update 4/11

Cabbage head
Almost time for cabbage
Although my garden isn't looking as vibrant as the same time last year, I've had a slow start this year. This week we'll be taking a look at the changes I've made so far to prepare for the longer growing season.
Left side balcony garden
Looking north
Right side balcony garden
Looking south
You may have noticed that the cabbage is nicely heading up in the photos above. I'll probably harvest that head next week to make room for some beans. Already I have planted the vacant half of that bin with some of the bean seeds I harvested from last year.
Almost ready to harvest cabbages
These cabbages are nearly done
Miserable looking garlic
New and removed garlic and lettuce bed
I have removed the rest of the cilantro from my garden. All it was doing was taking up space and trying to invade my room whenever I opened the door to the outside. In it's place I planted some lemon cucumber seeds. I want to see how well they'll do in soil. The lettuce that's still there is doing fine. 1 or 2 plants might have died by the heat, but I can always replant.
Salad bowl lettuce seedling
Salad bowl lettuce doing ok
Moving over to the left side of my balcony, with the cilantro gone, everything else will be getting more sunlight. I've had to remove two of my white chard plants because they bolted. I expect some of the others to bolt soon. I'll be replacing white chard with red chard as the season continues.
Foodhook giant chard
Surviving older white chard
Leafy greens
A closeup on the onions, lettuce, and kale
Grand rapids lettuce
Grand Rapids lettuce
Ruby Red Chard
Red chard growing very fast
Ruby Red Chard Seedlings
Newer red chard
My beloved giant kale plant has started to bolt. I think I'll keep it for now because I want to harvest seeds from it because it was a massive plant.
Kale bolting
The end of an era
Moving toward the subirrigated planter, several pea pods have begun to form on my pea plants. The carrots and onions are getting bigger too. My biggest spinach plant has started to bolt, but the other orphaned seeds are still alive and possibly growing.
Subirrigated planter garden
Everything is leaning toward the sun
Carrots
Carrots
Spinach
Smaller Spinach
Pea pods forming
Pea pods
Big spinach
This one had massive leaves
Finally, I decided to bring my old hydroponic hanging planters out of retirement to increase my growing space. I planted some Nevada lettuce in them to tolerate the heat in my area.
Hydroponic hanging planters
Those planters thought they could retire early
That concludes today's garden update. I'll be sure to include downstairs next week. Otherwise, this leaf of spinach below made a tasty morning snack.
Spinach snack
Biggest leaf I've grown so far
Last Update (4/2)

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