Garden Progress

Things are either going very well, or quite poorly, in my garden, depending upon which plant you ask.

A good thing?

I was able to get a tomato cage from my awesome sister-in-law and my scarlet Runner Beans are taking to it quite nicely.  I've noticed that there seems to be some variation in just the three bean plants I  have.  One grows super fast, and one grows very slowly in comparison to the other two.  They basically have a papa bear, mama bear, baby bear thing going on.  I thought about roguing out the slowest plant, but it occurred to me that it is densely filling the trellis in comparison to the faster two.   In small spaces such as mine it might be better to have a slower, more space-efficient plant than one that outgrows it's trellis quickly.

In the end, I think that I'll just save seed from all three plants rather than doing any selecting this season.  That way I should be able to get a better sense of what's going on.

The strawberries were doing super well, until a couple days ago. At which point, all the leaves flopped over. My guess is that they might be getting too much sun or too little water.  I've added another layer of straw on top in hopes that it'll help with water retention and keep the plants cool.  I might also pull the entire box a little further away from the edge of my balcony.

The peas and the cucumbers are both doing super poorly.  The peas never came up and the cucumbers first looked like they might need a little nitrogen and then all of them but one died over the course of a day. The remaining plant looks pretty pathetic. I broadcast half of my remaining pea seeds and mulched with more straw.  If that doest get me some peas I might try pre-soaking.

Hang on Mr. Cucumber!  You can do it!

The mint is alive, although it doesn't really seem to be spreading, and the green onions are barely hanging on.

I replanted the nasturtium, although, I was out out nitrogen rich materials so I'll need to find some if it's going to do well. The chamomile is flowering and I've already collected flower to dry for our tea. I really hope that we get quite a bit.

These flowers can probably be harvested tomorrow.

I think home grown tea deserves a really cute teapot.  I'm thinking of something long the lines of one of these.