Category: Manhattan

There were two of the hanging soda bottle planters that I took down from my fire escape garden.

The first one that I removed was because one side of the rope snapped and it was dangling by one side. So I removed it for safety reasons. I didn’t want another soda bottle falling like one did when I did my fall planting. Safety first.

The other that was removed was the bottle with the basil. It was apparent weeks ago, when I realized that basil isn’t a cold weather herb, but I was holding on to the fleeting thought that it would revive.

After the bottles were removed, I dumped them into my indoor compost bin where it will eventually make it’s way back out to the garden again.

Gotta keep the fire escape as clear and safe as possible.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eU6iz8ANK7w

The other day on my fire escape garden, I got my mini greenhouses for my hanging soda bottle planters up. Now I finally got the greenhouses built for the self watering containers as well.

The total cost to build the greenhouse was $0 since I used all materials that I had lying around my apartment. I was also able to cover two of the containers with one bag. The tomato plant was left uncovered because I don’t have a bag nearly large enough to cover that beast.

Of course now that they are set up, the weather during the day is starting to get warmer again. I’ve been removing the plastic during the mornings and putting back on during the evening.

The goal is that they will help to keep the plants warmer and live longer.

You think it’ll work?

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eGI7CwLdrO8

Now that the weather has dropped into the 40s, it was time for me to start covering up the plants on my fire escape garden. I started to put my plan into action last week, when I used phone books to get the containers off the metal.

My next step was to set up a miniature green house for the hanging soda bottle planters.

There are two things that I wanted to accomplish – keeping the soil warm and protecting the plant. I made these using materials that I had lying around or were readily available – more soda bottles, old t-shirts and plastic bags.

In setting up the miniature greenhouses, I suffered one casualty and the tarragon bottle fell four stories to its demise. Hopefully that won’t come back to bite me in the ass and they ask me to take everything down.

For some of them, I have the top part of the soda bottle covering the plant. I left the cap off to give them some fresh air and to be able to easily water. For others, I have the bottom part of the bottle covering the plant. These will require me to remove the tops to water.

I’m pretty sure that this should help to prolong the life of the plants through this cold weather.

What do you think?

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4XUvVm2OJk4

Now I got my final fall planting done on my fire escape garden. I had a bunch of lettuce leftover from my fall planting in my backyard vegetable garden. Didn’t have much room for any more self watering containers, so I made more hanging planters.

This time I used soda bottles, a Dr. Bronner’s gallon container and a coffee container.

I have a lot more space on the fire escape than I originally thought. This is definitely good to know for next spring. It’s all part of the learning process, and I see the garden much differently now than I did back in May.

All said and done I have three self watering containers, 10 soda bottle planters, 1 Dr. Bronner’s planter and a coffer container planter.

The next step is to figure out how to extend the lives of these as the weather gets colder.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZIQpEqdd754

Learned my first lesson about planting celery during my first harvest. It’s definitely best to plant a celery plant per container.

When I first planted the celery in my backyard vegetable garden, I planted in two containers. The first container had one plant in it and the second had several.

I harvested them the other day and it’s apparent that celery plants like to be on their own. The one that was solo was much thicker and deeper color. The celery that was packed in was, um, pathetic. Ok, not pathetic just inferior.

You know what? That’s what this is all about for me. Doing, seeing the results and improving for the next time.

The other thing that I learned about celery is that harvesting it is a challenge. At least harvesting it out of the container was.

Check out this video to see what I’m talking about as I struggle getting the celery out of the container.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rng3ZtquLpo

There’s been a lot about urine in the news lately. Juan Manuel Marquez was saying that he was drinking his own urine leading up to his fight with Floyd Mayweather.

As fascinating as that story is, the story that piqued my interest even more was the one about urinating on your tomatoes and how it can help to give you fruits four times larger.

I decided to give it a go and urinated on my cherry tomato plant on my fire escape garden. Don’t worry before I started, I looked and gave a yell so no one got hit with some unexpected rain.

According to the research done by the Finnish team, it’s actually a mixture of urine and wood ash that is the ultimate eco-friendly fertilizer. I just used my urine.

A few weeks ago I said that I wouldn’t recommend growing red peppers in small spaces because they weren’t productive. I might’ve spoken too soon because they are starting to bloom again and are showing a lot of buds.

I’m wondering if I should’ve harvested the others earlier, which would’ve allowed these to come through. It’s started to get cold here fast with it reaching the low 70s during the day and 50s at night.

That’s making me wonder if the peppers will be able to survive in this cold weather. Guess I’ll have to wait and see.

What’s your thoughts?

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0CNRHoHcPCE

Now that I’m a bit more comfortable with this urban gardening, I’m starting to see things a bit differently. I look at things and think, “how can I use that to plant something?”

In walking around my neighborhood, the East Village, I saw something that really struck my eye. It was a cinder block turned on it’s side with some plants in it.

Cinder blocks wouldn’t work on my fire escape garden, but definitely would work in my backyard garden, especially since my grandmother already has cinderblocks.

They are also the perfect price. Free.

So I hit up the farmers market, bought some cinnamon basil, some fancy Italian dandelion and olive leaf arugula and got them planted in the cinder blocks.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=37jBY6V0WLo

Three months after starting my fire escape garden, I was finally able to harvest my red peppers.

I harvested a grand total of two red peppers with the possibility of some more. Yes, it was rewarding and felt great to put them in my salad, but I was hoping for more.

If you are gardening in a small space and looking for productivity, I wouldn’t recommend planting red peppers. I’d either experiment with something else or plant something that is productive like lettuces or greens.

For those of you with more space to grow, then plant some red peppers. I’d plant them again in my backyard garden in Brooklyn.

Not sure if it was the kind of red pepper, Jimmy Nardello’s Sweet Italian, or just red peppers in general. What I do know is that next season, I won’t be planting red peppers on my fire escape again nor would I recommend it for you.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=woZ5o3xpJ28

The stories about the tomato blight are all over the news, including this op-ed piece in the New York Times, “You Say Tomato, I Say Agricultural Disaster.”

To my understanding it is an airborne fungus that wipes out tomato and potato crops. This year it’s affecting tomatoes hard.

From what I’ve read, the way it started this is year can be traced to the big businesses such as K-Mart, Wal-Mart and Home Depot. They buy their plants from industrial farms down South, which had the outbreak.

These plants were then shipped up north and sold to farmers and consumers. Since it’s an airborne disease direct contact isn’t necessary and it can affect a much larger population of plants.

Looking at my cherry tomato plants, they seem to be blight resistant.

The main reason why I think they are is because I bought from Silver Heights Farm, a local nursery.

Trina, the gardener at Silver Heights, starts from seed and oversees everything herself. The distance the plant travels from Silver Heights to my gardens is 30-40 miles, so there is less chance for exposure to disease.

It’s also easier for a local nursery to identify and isolate any chance of blight or disease at first look. The big industrial farms have too much acreage to be able to. By the time it’s noticed, it’s already planted in your garden and effecting your crop.

While it’s not guaranteed that what you buy from your local nursery won’t have blight, I think there is a much better chance of it not than if you were to buy from a big chain store.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yFuCHuJC62w

When I first started to plan my fire escape garden I thought that cherry tomatoes would work perfectly. Cherry tomatoes are small, so the plant would be small as well.

Now that summer weather has finally hit the NY and the plant is starting to grow, it’s gotten to be pretty tall. It’s about a half of a foot taller than me and I’m a giant.

I’ve had to get creative with the way that I’ve been supporting them.

I am not sure if it’s the kind that I’m growing, Anna Aasa, or it’s just the nature of the beast. My grandmother is growing tomatoes in her garden and the plant definitely isn’t as large.

The lesson learned for me is that just because the vegetable is small doesn’t mean that the plant will be.

What’s your thoughts – are all cherry tomato plants large or is it just this kind that I bought?

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pc2ncfahim8

I won’t be posting this week because I’m going to be working on redoing the site to be more user friendly. I’ll resume back to regular posting next week.

I know it will be rough for you during this time, not knowing how my lettuce are doing or if my cucumber plant is blooming. Just deal with it.

I’ll holla atcha next week.

I

I planted some kale and swiss chard out on my fire escape because there is no doubt that my lettuce died and weren’t growing any more.

Before I planted the kale and chard, I had to prepare the soil in the self watering container first. The dead remains of the lettuce were removed and some of my indoor compost was added to the soil and mixed in.

Even though I only bought one cell of each, there were many plants in the cells. There were about 3-4 plants in each. I separated them out, but still bunched them together when planting.

There’s still a bit more room in the container, so next week I might buy some more kale and chard or lettuces to put in the container as well.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vBrodD9uDPs