It’s been about 3-months since I planted the swiss chard seeds when I started my garden from scratch. The two containers are now bursting with some nice greenage and are ready to be harvested and picked. They could very well be left to grow larger, but I wanna eat. When taking a closer look at the container, the chard is growing clumps and doing pretty well. To...
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Back in March I asked you to share you spring gardening plans and ideas. I got some great responses from people saying what they were starting to or planning to do. Katy said she was going to attempt to grow tomatoes in self-watering containers again. Twinkle69 said she (I think it’s a she) was reading up a lot and planning to get started soon. Barri and RootsandWingsCo...
When you are growing in containers, you need to make sure that you amend your soil because the nutrients are being washed through the container or absorbed by the plant. One way that you can amend the soil is by adding compost to it. To use the compost, you’ll want to add some to the container especially around the base of the plant. Then you’ll need to...
I’ve talked about not having a perfect garden before, but I still get questions and comments about failing when gardening. People will say that they are scared of failing or making a mistake. They want things to be perfect. My sage advice to them is, “You will fail when you garden.” It’s impossible to avoid. It doesn’t matter what you...
A few weeks ago, I posted about white clusters on the stems of a spinach plant. It turns out that the spinach plant is bolting and that it’s not insects. There have a been some consecutive days of warm weather, which spinach doesn’t like. I assumed that greens could be grown year round here in LA, but I guess not all of them. Previously I learned that basil does not like the cold weather and that kale can tolerate the cold. Now I’ve learned that spinach cannot tolerate much heat. It’s all starting to come together. What...
Mint is a pretty invasive plant. Just ask anyone who has ever grown it in their garden. It can take over pretty quickly. This is why most people recommend growing it solely in containers. I’ve had my mint plant for a few months now. The leaves have remained pretty small. It’s not until I started my garden from scratch that I began paying more attention to it. The roots of the plant have been spreading all through the container and without much room to grow. Since the soil line is about 2-3″ below the top of the container,...
It’s been two-months since I’ve started my garden from scratch and for the most part it’s doing pretty well. Though I did notice that there were some white clusters on the stems of the spinach plants. These clusters were forming around the part where the leaves are coming off of the stems. I also noticed an insect on the plant as well around the clusters. At this point, it’s hard to tell whether it’s insect larvae or that the plant is attempting to go to seed. I had an aphid infestation last year, so it wouldn’t...
The one thing that I don’t say enough when writing these posts is “Thank You.” I’d like to thank all of you for taking the time out of your busy lives to read what I have to say. The reason that this has come to mind right now is because in the past few weeks, I’ve been nominated for a few awards. While I’m pretty happy to be nominated, it wouldn’t be possible without any of you. My reason for writing and keeping this site is to inspire you to reconnect with your food by growing your own and...
Since I’ve started my garden from scratch committed to eating off from my balcony more often, I am taking better care of the containers. It’s been a few weeks and the seedlings are starting to grow, so now it’s time to thin them out. What that means is cutting out the extra ones. When you planted your seeds, you likely scattered a few of them in the soil. Now that they’ve grown a little bit, there are a few of them that are really close to each other. You want to remove some of them. If you don’t they will...
About two weeks after I started my garden from scratch, I did some succession plantings. Since I’m gardening food to eat, not look at, this will help me to grow more on my balcony garden and eat from it more than twice in a year. Succession planting is when you plant a new set of seeds about 2-3 weeks after your initial planting. The purpose of this is that it will keep you with a continual harvest. When you harvest the first set, the second set is growing right behind it. Make sense? When I did the first round of plantings, there...
One of the questions that I’ve been getting a lot in the past week is just how mobile the Stack N Grow mobile planter is. When it’s filled is it too hard to push? The short answer to that is – no. It’s on wheels and can easily be pushed around from spot to spot. I actually had to move mine to the since the gutter is broken above my balcony, the rain water was pouring directly into it. It now sits in the front of my balcony garden. You can easily move it around your space to follow the sun or to suit whatever needs...
This is my second post for Rodale.com’s Plastic-Free February. Last week, I showed you my kitchen and how I do my best to avoid storing food in plastic containers and the challenges that I’m facing. This week, I want to show a small tip that I’ve started to use in my balcony garden to reduce some of my plastic usage. I know that I’m growing food in plastic containers in and have already covered that issue. This post is about using new or unnecessary plastics in the garden. What I’ve been doing is using a rock...
Since I’ve been called out on not being able to eat from my balcony garden, I’ve decided to start it from scratch. To start, the plants that were left over from being harvested were pulled up from the roots. Using a trowel, the soil in the containers was loosened up and turned. Any big clumps of roots were taken out as well. The plants, roots and soil were tossed into the compost bin. I also got rid of the shipping pallet herb garden because that space can be better utilized. It worked and I’d recommend it for others,...
The main reason for me writing this blog and being active in the social media world is to encourage you to start growing your own food. I show that I could do it on my fire escape in NYC and now my balcony in LA. It’s been 9-10 months since I’ve moved to LA from NYC. During that time I’ve had a total of one balcony salad. Yes, one. Uno. The other day my girlfriend, Anita, called me out and asked when we were going to eat off of it. She is all for not supporting Whole Foods and supplementing our weekly trips to the farmers...
When I came back from my New Year break, I said that I was going to post twice a week on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Now that we are a few weeks into the new year, I can’t do it. There are too many things that I’d like to discuss and share with you. On Monday, I’m starting to post four days a week. I already mentioned sharing seasonal recipes on a monthly basis, but can easily do that on a weekly basis. So here is what the weekly schedule will look like: Monday: Contests, book and movie reviews and other various topics. Tuesday:...
A few weeks back when I posted a question on Facebook asking what posts people would like me to write, I was asked by Tim of Ecycler about a “hit list” for starting an urban garden. I thought that it could be done in a short series, so here is the first part that includes what you will need to get started. The list is short and pretty simple. It consists of: Containers Since I make my own self-watering containers, I need two containers to make one container. Got that? There are many places that you can get the containers for...
So here it is my first post of 2011. It’s been about a month since I lasted posted. It looks like the world continued to exist and get by, which is good. Towards the end of last year I was starting to feel like I wasn’t bringing much value to the blog and internet world. I felt as if my posts and the information that I was providing was stagnant and blah. So I decided to unplug and take a break. During the break I received a bunch of messages and comments from people, which was much appreciated. People were letting me know...
This is going to be my last post of 2010. I need to take a break from posting and promoting. I’ve been feeling a bit stagnant lately. I think the posts and blog have suffered because of it. It feels like I’m forcing content and just putting stuff out there. It feels like I’m saying the same things over and over again to the same people. I appreciate those people, but I think I need to take some time off to hopefully rest, refocus and re-energize. Hope everyone has a good holiday and happy new year. httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=38ZmkCIZ-VM ...
It’s getting close to winter time here in the States. Last year during this time I was wrapping up my growing season on my fire escape garden. This now that I’m on the left coast I can grow on my balcony garden year round. Not everyone is that fortunate when it comes to their growing season. For most of you the season has pretty much ended unless you’ve built a cold frame or hoop house to extend your season. Just because the weather has dropped doesn’t mean that you can’t continue to grow or start to grow...
There have been mysterious sprouts growing in the containers on my balcony garden for months now. At first I thought they were old seeds that I had planted and never sprouted, but then I planted in new containers using new soil and the sprouts appeared again. Some of the sprouts have finally started to mature to the point where they have full leaves. They are dark green in color and hearty like malabar spinach. I cannot identify what they could possibly be. Are they a weed? Edible? Ornamental? I’ve pretty much thinned them out in...
