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Figuring Out How To Trellis Vining Vegetables

Now that I have three self-watering containers with vining vegetables – one tomato plant and two cucumber seeds – I need to figure out the best way to trellis them.

Since my balcony garden is not huge, I need to utilize the limited space the best way that I can. What I don’t want to happen is the for the plants to grow out of control like my cherry tomatoes did on my balcony last year.

I’ve been starting to look around for items that can be reused to help grow the plants upwards instead of outwards. The railing on the balcony might be a good option to help train the vegetables.

The other day, I came across a shipping palette that I might be able to use either as is or break down the pieces to build something similar to the cucumber trellis that I built last year.

What are some ways that you’ve been able to trellis your vining vegetables with items that are lying around the house?

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NjmlJIa6SfE

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I Am Not A Gardener

I’m gonna get philosophical and say that I am not a gardener. I am Mike, and I grow food.

Yes, this might seem contradictory considering the site is called Urban Organic Gardener, but I have to use the term gardener because that’s what people associate with what I’m doing.

There is nothing wrong with gardening, but it’s just not what I do. To me gardening is what Fern, Teresa, Jenny and Jean Ann do.

I gots no beef with gardening and what they are doing. When I think of gardening, I think of pretty landscaping with nice neat lines in a space that’s well manicured. Plus the phrase gardening just sounds foo foo to me. The word in and of itself is a turn off.

That’s not what I’m doing. I’m not doing this to make things like pretty. I’m doing this to supply myself with food. There is a distinction.

If a few kale leaves go yellow, that’s cool. If all of the kale leaves go yellow, that’s a problem because then I can’t eat it.

I’m growing my own food because I know what is going into it from the soil, to the plants to the water. It helps to decrease my carbon footprint because I’m using mostly materials that would be tossed to landfill to plant in the self-watering containers, soda bottles and coconut shells.

No toxic chemicals or sprays were used and I can eat a salad within 20 minutes of harvesting it, which cuts down on the oil used to transport our food to us.

It’s about re-establishing my connection with my food source. I have some food growing on my balcony garden and plan to grow a lot more. I guess you can say that I have a vegetable garden on my balcony.

Not everyone is going to be into growing so much, but I believe that if everyone were to grow just one plant, it would change their outlook on food.

So step away from the machine and get to growing. Let me know how it works out for you.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=saOUvs-_oIc

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Eating My First Balcony Garden Salad

Three months after starting my balcony garden, I was able to harvest my first balcony garden salad made up of romaine lettuce and kale. This was a much different experience than when I harvested my first fire escape garden salad in NYC.

Last year I was pretty overwhelmed that I was able to trace my produce from fire escape to bowl, but this year I have a different appreciation considering all the problems that I’ve had with the cabbage worms and aphids.

As I was picking my lunch from the self-watering containers, I came across a cabbage worm that I tossed off the balcony.

I pretty much harvested all three of the containers because when I first transplanted them I think that I packed them in too tightly. I don’t think that it was too many plants in a container. I think it was too many plants close together.

After picking the containers, I brought them inside to rinse off since they were sprayed down with worm leachate and the organic soap spray. The salad was prepared with other fresh ingredients sourced locally from the farmers market.

I enjoyed the salad on my balcony garden where I harvested it just 20 minutes earlier. It’s not going to get much fresher than that.

This has given me a whole new appreciation for food and what goes into growing it. It’s not something that I’m going to take for granted between the insects and the yellow leaves.

This is my first balcony garden salad, but I have a lot more growing to feed me.

All it takes is just one herb or vegetable and it will make a difference. It will open up your eyes and give you a new appreciation for and connection with food. When are you going to start growing your own food?

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eHrYFXIR2wE

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Succession Dill Seed Planting

The dill seeds were planted sometime in the beginning of June. To make sure that I continually have dill available to be I did some succession planting of more seeds.

Succession planting is when you plant seeds in a way that you continually have a fresh crop available. Once one crop is harvested, there is another growing right behind it.

This is great for small space gardening. I never did it on my fire escape garden, but am trying it for the first time on my balcony garden.

Initially there were two rows of dill seeds planted. Now there are four seeds that have sprouted. For some reason, it’s the seeds that were planted in the corners. The ones in the middle have yet to sprout.

For this succession planting, two more rows of dill seeds were planted in between the initial two. I’m hoping that this will provide me with plenty of fresh dill throughout the coming months.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UJ1LdsOA_Z0

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Creative Herb Garden Container Idea

Most of my planting so far have been of one single herb or veggie in a container. This time I decided to get creative with a herb container idea – I surrounded calendula with basil, cilantro, parsley, and oregano.

I know that’s pretty crazy. It’s summer time, and I’m feeling frisky. Chopsticks were also reused as row markers to tell what the hell was planted where.

There were four sets of calendula seeds that were planted in the center of the container. To the top of basil about five sets of basil seeds were planted. To the left cilantro seeds were planted in about three rows. Parsley seeds were scattered along the bottom and oregano along the right side.

One of the top five gardening mistakes that I made last year was planting too many herbs together.
This is the first time that I’ve mixed up different kinds of seeds in s container like this.

That was in much smaller containers, so I’m hoping that the bigger self-watering container will allow the herbs to grow together. What do you think?

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v3BjT_1OZqc

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How You Can Make Gardening Cheap

One of the reasons that people won’t start growing their own food is that they say that it is too expensive. There are free and cheap resources out there, you just need to seek them out. Here are some ways that you can make gardening cheap, so that you can start to grow your own food.

  • Local Department of Sanitation or Office County Extension They usually have free events or programs throughout the year where you can get free resources such as compost or mulch. This past weekend, I attended an open house held by LA’s Bureau of Sanitation where I walked away with bags of free compost, mulch and a tomato plant.

    During the week, at nine different locations, you can get free mulch and compost (at certain locations) at . All you need to do is bring your own shovel and container.

    Most cities usually offer compost bins at a discount to their residents as well.

  • 5-Gallon Containers Check your farmers markets, delis and restaurants. Most will gladly give them to you because they are just going to throw them away. If not, offer up a dollar or two. These are great to make self-watering containers with.
  • Soda Bottles Unfortunately soda bottles are everywhere. If you don’t drink soda, then check your local recycling bin or ask friends and family to save them for you. You can use them to make hanging soda bottle planters or self-watering containers made out of a soda bottle.
  • Coconut Shells If you buy coconuts, then save the shell and you can plant shallow rooted herbs and veggies in them like lettuce.
  • Horse Manure Call up any local horse stables or riding academies to see if they have any horse manure that you can take off their hands. Most usually do and will give it away for free or for a small cost. It makes a great addition to compost.
  • Cafes and Coffee Shops Hit up your local cafe or coffee shop and ask them for their coffee grinds. Most keep them on hand to give out to local gardeners. The grinds works great as a fertilizer and help to feed the plants. They also make a great addition to your compost.
  • Beaches The next time you are at the beach make sure to bring some sand and seaweed home with you. If you are having drainage issues, the sand will help with that. The seaweed will really help to mineralize certain plants.
  • Free Tomato Seeds WinterSown.org offers 6 packets of free tomato seeds when you send them a self-addressed stamped envelope.

These are just a few ways that you can make gardening cheap. Nearly all of these resources are readily available to you, you just might have to inquire a bit and seek some of them out. Lemme know if I can help you to find them in your area.

What are some other great local resources that can help to make your gardening cheap?

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yleqMj1WouU

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Using Worm Leachate In The Garden

I’m using the worm leachate that was produced by the Worm Factory 360 in my garden. The leachate was mixed up with 3 parts water and put into a spray bottle and the plants were sprayed down.

Since my kale leaves are yellowing, aphids have infested my purple kale and cabbage worms wiped out the oak greens, I’m hoping that this will help to help both fertilize the plants and to keep the the insects away.

The leachate is produced by all of the excess moisture that the worm bin has been drained out of the worm bin. This is different than compost tea, which is made from brewing up finished compost with water.

I’ve heard that leachate isn’t as desirable to use in your garden as worm tea because some of the matter in it might not be fully broken down and in a toxic state. I know I’m crazy and still decided to give it a try and sprayed some on my plants. What’s the worst that’s going to happen?

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5p_dV1qwOX0

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What Causes Yellow Kale Leaves

I haven’t had the best of luck on my balcony garden. The oak greens were wiped out by cabbage worms and the purple kale had an aphid infestation.

Now the leaves on my kale containers are continuing to yellow. From what I’ve heard and read there a bunch of causes for the leaves of kale to yellow.

It could be a lack of nitrogen, so I added coffee grinds to help with the yellow leaves. That didn’t work.

I’ve also read that it could be because of poor drainage. I stopped watering them for a bit. That didn’t work.

Someone else said that it could be due to lack of watering. I watered more frequently. That didn’t work.

The most important thing is that kales are a decent size, so I am gonna harvest and eat them before the end of the week.

This is another reason that I don’t read many gardening books (except for “Grocery Gardening” ) and listen to the “experts” because there is no one right answer.

I’m sure there are a million other causes that people can think of for yellow kale leaves. What are they?

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DoQ06KH794c

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Aphid Infestation Wiped Out My Purple Kale

A few weeks ago the cabbage worms killed the container that had the oak greens in them. This week an aphid infestation has wiped out the container with the purple kale.

The natural garden pest control worked well for a bit, but I couldn’t keep up with them. There were massive gray clumps of them on the plant each time I went out there.

When I had my fire escape garden in New York City, I had no insect problems at all. In the two months that I’ve had my balcony garden, the insects have already wiped out two containers.

I still refuse to use any kind of pesticides or nasty ass chemicals. What I’ll have to do is buy some netting and make row covers to keep the insects out.

Between killing all the seeds and two containers falling victims to insects, I’m not having the best of luck in LA so far, but I’m still gonna keep on growing.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nr6PEl_KT90

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“Grocery Gardening” Book Review

I’m not really into gardening books because in my opinion most are boring and don’t hold my interest. This made me a bit hesitant to read Grocery Gardening by Jean Ann Van Krevelen (@JeanAnnVK) since she is a friend of mine.

My beef with most gardening books is that they are usually written for people that are already into gardening and over the heads of people who are mildly interested. This book is written for someone who is curious about growing their own food or seeking out fresh locally grown sources.

You aren’t going to walk away from this book with detailed instructions of what to do, which is what I like about it. It doesn’t scare you away with all of the intricate details. Grocery Gardening provides high level information about planning, mulching, identifying pests in your garden and more.

Once you know what you’re interested in, you’ll have to seek more detailed information on it. My favorite part of the book, besides my fire escape garden being featured on page 20, is the breakdown of each edible.

For each herb and vegetable basic information is given on how to plant, grow, varieties of, seeking out the next best choices if you aren’t growing your own and how to preserve. Common pests and diseases for each herb and veggie are provided, which you can then reference back to the beginning of the book as to how to control.

Since it’s food that you’re growing, recipes are included to give you ideas of how to prepare the food once it’s been harvested.

If you are curious about growing your own food and looking for a book to read, Grocery Gardening is one that I’d recommend. It’s a simple read and will help to get you started on growing your own food.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cg3U-a7WCCs

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Self-Watering Container Made Out of a Soda Bottle

Here’s another creative gardening idea for those of you with limited space. It’s a self-watering container made out of a 2 liter soda bottle.

This self-watering container is made out of a soda bottle, an old t-shirt (or cotton string) and some newspaper. That’s it. Hard to get much cheaper than that. I had seen the idea on Instructables a while back and have been wanting to do it since.

These are just another option for you to start growing your own food besides the coconut shells, hanging soda bottle planters, cinder blocks and three other versions of self-watering containers. Any of these can fit your space regardless of how small your space is.

I’ve planted some basil seeds in mine. Now what’s your excuse for not starting to grow some of your own food? You don’t have to grow a lot. Just one plant will make a difference.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P8obfQfu3mM

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I’m Not Stopping Because Some Seeds Died

It hasn’t been a great week for my balcony garden. First the oak green leaf container was infested with little black eggs that I later learned was cabbage worm crap. Now my tomato seeds that were doing so well have all died.

I had each of them planted in a plastic strawberry container. Last weekend I went away from Friday to Sunday. When I left on Friday morning, the seeds were doing well. Three of the four seed starter pots were about 2-3 inches and had some leaves.

Before leaving, I watered them and decided to leave them outside. Upon my return, they were all dead. The next time I go away, I’m not sure if I should leave them inside or what to do. I’ll have to figga that out.

Fern from Life on the Balcony wrote a post that this reminded me of titled, “What Gardening Has Taught Me About Life.” Check it out, some great insight from Fern and by people who left comments.

What this has taught me is that I won’t let the setbacks in life stop me. I haven’t had the best of luck with seeds so far, but I’m learning and am now just one step closer to getting it right.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o3HpJXvH0Lg

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Little Black Eggs On My Plants

The green oak lettuce on my balcony garden has not been doing well at all. When checking out the containers the other day, I took a closer look at it and noticed little black egg looking things that were accumulated at the bottom of the leaves.

I have no clue what they are, but can only describe them as caviar looking. They didn’t budge when I poked the with a stick and there were dozens of them lining the leaves around the soil line. I have no clue what they are and if they eventually grow into anything.

My assumption is that these and the cabbage worms, which I had to pick one off as I was checking out the container, are the reasons for the plant dying.

To be safe, I’m going to dig up the plant and get rid of it. I won’t throw it into my compost. Not sure what I’ll do with the soil though.

What’s your thoughts on what the hell those things could be and what to do with the soil?

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zv4_IAGaCPA

Reminder: You can enter to win a Spin Bin Compost Tumbler until Thursday, June 10, 2010 12am PST

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Help Needed for the Backyard Gardening Project

I knew that in coming to LA that I would be able to have the balcony garden and was hoping to expand beyond container gardening into actual soil and land.

Luckily, I’ve been able to get access to a huge (at least it’s huge to me) amount of backyard space thanks to David, a friend of Anita. He has offered up his backyard in Reseda to start gardening and growing food in. David ain’t my Gram, but his backyard is definitely bigger than hers.

As of right now the space is completely overridden with weeds. When I checked it out, besides the weeds, it looked to be growing cinder blocks, soccer balls and dead animals. Not the best of growing conditions.

This will definitely be a huge undertaking of a project, especially for someone who hasn’t ever done anything like this before. That didn’t stop me when I first started my fire escape garden, but that was successful. It certainly ain’t gonna stop me now either.

I have the big picture of what the project is going to look like in my head, but there’s lots to be done to get to that point.

This entire project will be too much for me do entirely by myself. I’ll have David, Anita and Eugenie (David’s girlfriend) to help me out, but I’m also looking for people that are interested in getting involved.

It’ll be a great way to learn, meet new people, build community and grow some fresh organic produce. This will be some truly old school type isht. People getting together to grow food.

The details of what will be involved and what you’ll get (besides fresh organic produce) still needs to be worked out, but at this point I want to gauge who is interested.

If you or anyone you know is interested at this point, please fill out the form below, and I’ll contact you. More details on this to come.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=odzpdhG3sHg

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How To Easily Make A Self-Watering Container

One of the best parts about making self-watering containers for your garden is that it’s cheap. Most of the supplies needed are either already laying around the house or you can easily get in your neighborhood.

The best part is that you can grow a ton of different herbs and vegetables in containers just like this.

Container Within A Container and No Pipe
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nHZ4CLEGh-I

Tools

  • Drill
  • 1/4″ bit
  • 3 1/2″ hole saw for metal and wood
  • 1 1/4″ hole saw for metal and wood

Materials:

  • 2 food grade 5 gallon containers – 1 for planting container and 1 for reservoir container
  • 1/2 deli container for wicking basket

Instructions On How to Make With 2 Containers and No Pipe

  • Use the 1/4″ drill bit to drill holes in the deli container.
  • Attach the 3 1/2″ hole saw attachment to the drill. Drill a hole in the bottom of the container. I’ve found drilling in a counter-clockwise direction to work best.
  • Reattach the 1/4″ drill bit and drill holes in the bottom of the planting container to allow for drainage.
  • Put the wicking basket in the middle of the reservoir container.
  • Place the planting container in the reservoir container aligning the wicking basket with the hole in the middle.
  • There will be a little space between the wicking basket and the planting container. You can duct tape the basket to the bottom of the container, but it’s not necessary.
  • Hold the containers up to the light. You should be able to see through the reservoir container where the planting container is. Using the 1 1/4″ hole saw, drill a hole 1/4″ in the reservoir container below where the planting container is.
  • This is the hole where you will water the plant from.
  • That’s it. You’re done!
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Make Sure To Have A Container To Transplant Your Seeds

Yes it might sound obvious, but when you start your seeds make sure that you have a container to transplant them into. I didn’t and had a tray of dead seedlings. This could very well be one of the biggest gardening mistakes that I’ve made.

Last week the seedlings were slanting a bit. This week they are all dead.

A few of the pots were popped open and the roots appeared to be a bit compact causing their demise.

The toilet paper roll seed starter pots are so shallow and don’t allow for much root expansion. There is about 1/2″ of soil at most in each one.

This is not to say that these seed starter pots aren’t good to use. What I am saying is that if you are going to use them to make sure that you have containers or pots readily available to put them in or something larger to transplant them into before putting outdoors.

All is not lost. The dead seedlings were tossed into my worm composter and will eventually make their way back into my urban gardens.

Point your finger and laugh, but I’m sure you’ve made your own obvious mistakes in starting your seeds. Let’s hear them.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vA91cqTZkdE

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Natural Garden Pest Control Inspired By Mr. Miyagi

I had my first problems with garden insects a few weeks ago. I wound up wrestling cabbage worms and fighting aphids.

Since then, it got me thinking…What would Mr. Miyagi do when faced with cabbage worms and aphids?

It came to me. Mr. Miyagi would use natural garden pest control, so would I.

I’ve been using chopsticks to pick the cabbage worms off the purple kale and toss them off of my balcony garden. The damage that’s been done is pretty serious. They’ve managed to chew up most of the leaves. The kale is looking pretty weak and beaten up. On a good note, I haven’t seen cabbage worms in a few days.

For the aphids I thought, “Spray on. Spray off.” So I made a homemade organic aphid spray using Dr. Bronner’s soap. I’ve been spraying down the plants once a day with the soap, then spraying it off with some water afterwards.

That’s how Mr. Miyagi inspired for my natural garden pest control.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M7Q3JM0aO9I

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Yellow Plant Leaves: Use Coffee Grinds

The leaves around the base of my kale and lettuce plants are yellowing around the base. I’ve used coffee grinds as a fertilizer to help with this issue.

I think two of the main culprits causing the yellowing leaves could be lack of drainage for the soil or nutrients. I don’t think it’s drainage because there are plenty of drainage holes drilled at the bottom of the self-watering containers.

That leaves me with lack of nutrients as the reason. Coffee grinds are a simple and cheap way to provide the plant with the nutrition that it needs.

If you don’t have grinds around the house, go to your local cafe and ask them if you can have theirs. Most should gladly give them to you. If not, screw em and go to another.

I sprinkled some of the grinds around the base and soil. To make sure that the nutrients are absorbed, I poured (gray) water on top of them. If it was going to rain, I could’ve left the container out and let nature do it’s thing.

What are some other ways to help with yellowing leaves?

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1DSjc8CGqDc

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Update on the Seed Experiment

It’s been a little over a week since I started the experiment with planting the same set of seeds indoors and outdoors to see which would do better.

There were two sets of four different kinds of seeds that were planted in toilet paper roll seed starter pots. They were leaf lettuce, basil, sunflowers and calendula.

At this point, the seeds that were started indoors are performing a million times better. A million times in the sense that they’ve actually sprouted as opposed to the ones outdoors that have nothing to show.

The weather outside has been in the high 60s at night and 50s during the evening. It possibly could’ve dipped down into the 40s.

The carrot and mesclun seeds that were planted outdoors in the containers are starting to show sprouts as well. There are some green carrot tops poking their way through the soil and same for the mesclun.

Mesclun Seeds. May 16, 2010. Carrot Seeds. May 16, 2010.

Yes, the indoor seeds have begun to sprout, but they are leaning and stretching towards the sunlight since they are sitting in an east facing window that only gets the morning sun. I am pretty sure that this should be a concern because they are leaning and looking stretched out.

I’m going to start putting them outdoors for a few hours a day to get them more in the direct sunlight to hopefully straighten them out some. I really don’t want to have to buy grow lights. What do you think?

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4amGwb9CcOg

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Using Coconut Shells as a Planter

After you are done with your coconut, hollow it out out and use it to plant vegetables with shallow roots in them such as lettuces and other greens.

Much like the toilet paper roll seed starter pots, these are the great price of free.

    What you’ll need to get your coconut shell container made:

  • Coconut shell
  • Potting mix
  • Seeds
  • Spray bottle filled with water
  • Drill with 1/4″ bit
    How to make a coconut shell container:

  • Drill 2-3holes in the bottom of the shell. Drill from the inside of the shell.
  • Fill up with potting mix.
  • Dig a small 1/4″ deep hole in the middle of the soil and drop in your seeds.
  • Spray with some water and cover up with soil.
  • Spray down again and place in the sunlight.

[flickrset id=”72157623948778573″ thumbnail=”square” overlay=”true” size=”medium”]

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8W6F8V_Obxc