Three cucumbers have started to come through on my cucumber plant, so I needed to relocate it to another part of the garden for better support. I moved it closer to the fence where I was able to train it up with some string. I was pretty happy to see the cucumbers since the leaves at the bottom have been drying out and dying. They were picked off and the cucumber trellis that I made was readjusted and tightened. After the trellis was tightened, the plant had to be propped back up on it and secured to the fence. Now I’m hoping that...
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I’m back “home” in Philly this week visiting friends that I haven’t seen in a while. My old roommate and I got to talking about the gardening thing. He dropped a comment saying that I should read some books on gardening and stop with all the experimentation. If I were to do that, then I’d still be reading books, get overwhelmed with unnecessary info and likely get frustrated and just give up. Which is I’m sure has happened to some of you if you’ve even gotten that far. What did people do hundreds...
It’s been a few weeks since I planted my cucumber plant. It was starting to grow outside of the container, which is a good thing (at least it ain’t dying). So I built a cucumber trellis for it using mostly recycled materials. Tools and materials: Old poles put out by someone for garbage. You can use anything that is sturdy enough and stands upright such as tree branches, old crutches or broom sticks. Strong tape to tape the poles to the container. String to tie around the poles and make the trellis. Scissors Steps to...
I learned a valuable lesson in gardening (and life) this week, it doesn’t pay to be lazy. A few weeks ago, I transferred my celery into a new self watering container and didn’t poke a hole to allow for water drainage. Sure enough with all of the rain that we’ve been getting here, the bucket became nearly submerged under water. The celery was getting water logged and starting to die off. Celery drinks a lot of water, but not that much. I had to poke a drainage hole in the container to allow the water to drain out and...
In case you are new or couldn’t tell at this point, I am new to this gardening thing. Just taking things as they come. The one thing that I do know (I think) is that when plants start to flower, they are coming near the end of their productive lives. So I was a bit concerned, when my basil plants began flowering so early. What’s a man to do when his basil plant is coming to it’s end? I did what anyone else would do these days…I asked my peoples on Twitter. Luckily for me, master gardener Teresa O’Connor of...
I finally got a around to buying and planting a new cucumber plant in my Brooklyn garden. After the first week, the first cucumber plant died. At the advice of the gardener that I bought it from, I did not separate the plants and just planted them together. This one better last longer. Just sayin. ...
I needed to transplant my celery into a new self watering container because the telephone pole in my Grandmother’s neighbor’s backyard rotted and crashed into her backyard. Luckily, nobody was hurt. Can’t say the same for my celery container. When the pole fell, it hit the pipe, which in turn cracked the reservoir. I used duct tape to patch up the hole because duct tape fixes everything. It’s a myth, don’t believe the hype. The container was still leaking. Thankfully, I still had some green tubs left over...
I didn’t want to have another post about my Grandmother so soon, but after spending the day with her yesterday I had to post a little something. I spent the day with her to help clean out her shed and take care of some chores around the backyard (because I am such a wonderful grandson.) As I was about to leave she asked me to pick her some lettuce for her dinner. If you didn’t catch the first post about her, she called my lettuce “grass” when I asked her to taste it. So I was shocked when she asked me and her thoughts...
I spend a lot of time with my Grandmother. One day during the winter we got to talking and I expressed my interest in wanting to grow my own vegetables. She offered up her backyard, which was great. As much as I wanted to utilize it, it wouldn’t have been fair to her because some of the responsibility would be on her shoulders. Door to door Gram is about an hour commute from my Manhattan apartment. So making that trip 3-4 times a week would’ve been a bit much for me. She just turned 90 a few months back, but she’s still...
After not checking in for a week, I was bit nervous in checking in on my vegetable garden in Brooklyn. Luckily with the ridiculous amounts of rain that we’ve been getting, things looked good, but some of the containers showed signs of pest problems. The first problem that I noticed was on the collard greens. Some of the leaves on the left side were a bit chewed through. Most of the bigger leaves were untouched. I didn’t notice any pests on them while I was there. At this point, I’m not seeing this as a huge problem, but...
After the poor display of the herbs on my fire escape, I was very happy when I checked in on my Brooklyn vegetable garden. Everything looked real good, well except for the cucumber plant or what was the cucumber plant. Peep these photos: I am heading out of town this afternoon and heading to Bonnaroo. I’ll be back on Monday, but I still have posts scheduled for when I am gone. ...
It’s one full week since I’ve planted my vegetable gardens on my fire escape and in Brooklyn. Here’s an update on how things are progressing. Before I do that, I wanted to let you know that I decided not to garden at my parents in Staten Island and to move those containers to Brooklyn. Logistically, it makes more sense that way. My Fire Escape Vegetable Garden The tomato plant started to bloom a bit and was picked. It was picked so that the plant can focus on growing as opposed to blooming at this point. The pepper plant...
After two long, but fun, days and some rain I set up my vegetable garden in my grandmother’s backyard in Brooklyn this past weekend. All said and done I planted in 16 containers and 5 herb planters. The vegetables I planted were – buttercrunch lettuce, cabbage, cauliflower, celery, collard greens, crisphead lettuce, cucumbers, escarole, onions, radicchio, romaine lettuce, sorrel, stinging nettles, swiss chard, sweet red pepper and wild leaf lettuce. The herbs that were basil, chocolate mint, dill, oregano, parsley, rosemary,...
by jamieleto After securing the garden space in Staten Island and sleeping on it the past few days, I came up with a plan to make this more affordable and environmentally friendly. I did as much research as I could into what would be the most affordable, environmentally sound and healthy way to do this project. The first thing that I looked into was which plastics are food safe and environmentally safe? The numbers on the bottom of the containers surely mean something. Sure enough they do. Then came across another site, which spoke about...
Took the day off from work today to spend the day with my gram and to negotiate the land space with her. Before I headed out to her, I measured out the space of my fire escape garden. Not too bad about 36″x”12″. That should be enough for about three buckets without getting in the way. Just need to figure out how many soda bottle planters we can...
I am taking this project beyond my small fire escape garden and back to my Brooklyn roots in Canarsie. Yup, I’ll be growing a vegetable garden in Brooklyn. What? A few weeks ago my grandmother offered up her backyard to grow what I wanted. The offer was turned down because I didn’t think that I’d have the time to tend to it, and I wouldn’t expect my 90-year old grandmother to take care of it. My gram still lives in Canarsie, which is about an hour commute from me. Now that I’ve come across self watering...
