Never saw the plant before relocating to this part of the country, and now it's one of my favorite plants. It's hardy, easy, looks great, grows like the dickens but doesn't spread like a weed. We had some landscaping done and accidentally split a couple of mature plants in moving things around, and now I can't tell which were the split ones, and which survived whole - they all look great!
This year, I'm putting it everywhere. It can have the whole yard as far as I'm concerned.
Southern balcony gardener reporting in with mostly-positive results! Some of the plants I grew from seed are doing well, including my kale, micogreens, sunflowers, catnip, and even a few pumpkins! The kale and microgreens are looking great, though I need to harvest more to prevent crowding (right?), so I've actually started to add the microgreens into my lunches! I think I'll make a baby kale salad today as well.
Unfortunately, I've lost most of the pumpkin sprouts due to this heat and my own inexperience, but(!) I never had high hopes for container pumpkins on a balcony in the South. It's just a fun thing to try, and maybe the few I have will flower again and let me help pollinate.
That brings me to my real passion, peppers! My cayennes have been doing swimmingly, and I've been able to harvest enough for wife to make our own brand of hot sauce. It's pretty cool seeing a finished product this early in the summer! I'm excited for more to come in, especially my jalapenos and ghost peppers so we can make it kick a little harder. I actually found a hot dragon roll pepper that had ripened way sooner than expected, and Bees, I am happy to report that a glass of milk was almost necessary to help with the heat!
That's it for now :) here's a picture of a sunflower that I grew.
We lost a few winter squash in this recent heat wave in the northeast, I sympathize and echo your hope for some fresh growth!
And as someone with a rocky history of growing peppers and who has a spouse that can't handle spice much at all, I'm super glad you're having a great time of it and will be enjoying peppers vicariously through you <3
We are going to move from our apartment to a lovely house in August. I'm looking forward to the new place. it's gonna be awesome for the family and me, but it means giving up my backyard garden in the middle of the season.
I have many plants in containers so it's not like I'll lose everything, but the move has a bittersweet note.
I do not have pictures right now, but my plants are doing better. A few more of my peppers in my larger pots are beginning to fruit with more flowers, and a few tomatoes are beginning as well. I feared that my watermelons were dying, but they are back to life and flourishing right now.
With my beds themselves, two of my three tomatoes in the beds are doing alright with one doing better than the other, while the middle tomato plant is dead as dirt for some reason. Similarly my onion bed did not survive the storming we had a week or two ago. Sadly I am going to need to figure out the plan there.
My indoor tomatoes and indoor onions though are doing very well!
Well boo to the ones that up and died on you, I'm glad you have backups that are doing well. I'd be interested to know what you're thinking when you dig into (hah!) what should go into the onion bed, if you're so inclined.
I am debating if I wanted to try a second time around with the onions, but maybe try more Egyptian Walking Onions instead of traditional white onions; however, I also have debated if I wanted to just switch to the next in the set for crop rotations. I have decided that next year I am going to attempt crop rotations with my four major sub-sections, being two sets of pots, and two raised beds.
I'm a fan of walking onions, personally. That said, I'd encourage you to weigh the benefit of having practiced some rotation before it is the plan and ironing out the wrinkles you encounter.
If you've got starts of something ready to go, I'd plant those to get a crop into the bed where the onions were and then work to get that crop's replacements ready. Otherwise I'd pick something that germinates quickly to seed out and then set about prepping for the next plants to go in. Depending on what your season is like, you might still be able to do an early summer / late summer / fall set of plant rotations
Finally figured out how remove exif data and add an image, so here's a picture of the garden! I hand pollenated my first butternut squash yesterday, and the cucumber plants are covered in flowers, several of which look like they might actually start turning into cucumbers! I've got some empty space that I want to figure out what to do with, I'm starting some more bell peppers and I think I might plant some more carrots. Overall very happy with how things are growing so far this year!
The raised beds with the arch trellis have cucumbers, tomatoes, potatoes, squash, basil, some brassicas (not doing too great), radish, and beets. The beds in the foreground have chickpeas and some empty space where I may add carrots. There is another bed off camera where I have more pumpkins and some sunflowers.
I really enjoyed this article, thanks for sharing! Now when I lose track of what I seeded where I will say I'm practicing my field botany bee happy emoji
Absolutely not. The deer have become a big problem since they have insufficient natural predators around here, so anything that people can do to reduce their survival rate is a good thing. My little guy is just doing his part.
Heyo! So recently we got some new plants, and thank you for the tip a while ago to re-pot my aloe, it's doing much better now, I think. The middle is still brownish red, but the rest is very strong and green, and there are still parts of it growing out of the center.
I'd post pictures but I'm on mobile, maybe when my power comes back on!
My mom bought a tropical hibiscus which I'm not sure will survive but we'll see. It seems to be doing well enough. I managed to get an english lavender and I've been told by a friend who knows more about plants that it looks very healthy. And roses have been really hard to grow for us but one of the two rose bushes my mom bought seems to be doing well too!
Questions, though. I've read that lavender wants pine needles over leaf mulch, are they significantly better? I'm also wondering how much I should be watering it, we've had a lot of storms lately but I want to stay on top of it.
Thanks for any more tips and thanks for the thread!
It's always a joy to see this thread posted :) I just got back inside from watering my little balcony garden, and I'm pleased to report that things are looking pretty good! Wife and I had to fasten some twine to the tomato plant to give it some support, because the maters are coming in big this year! Dinosaur kale is coming along nicely and the non-descript micro greens are right behind. My sunflowers are starting to bud too, and I'm so excited for when they bloom.
My catnip and pumpkins sprouts aren't doing as well as I'd hoped, but that's on me. I've lived in the South my whole life, and I was still so surprised it got so hot so quick. I was lucky that they more-or-less bounced back after being cared for, but let's just say I'm not planning to carve my own pumpkins this fall just yet. But as I've said before, this is just a fun little hobby (at least that's what I tell myself, I was very saddened to see them wilting in the sun). And hey, my peppers are looking great, especially the cayennes!
Have some pictures! Go easy on my poor little sprouts 😭
Thank you! That means a lot :) I took your advice from a few threads back and made sure they were getting more sunlight. In terms of protection, not much, just trying to keep their little starter trays damp in this heat. They dry out so quickly!
We hit 90F yesterday and I watered some of our starter trays like six times, I feel your pain. How are the pumpkins' roots looking? If they're starting to bust out at the bottoms (or sides of you have that kind) it might be time to think about giving them some more space, and the additional soil will increase the amount of water they can have available throughout the day
Looks like there are a variety of sedum species suitable for your climate - but don't know how rough your cats are and if they would tear that up. You could try a variety of herbs like mint - might be a source of interest for the cats.
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