Last month, I planted kale and lettuce in the container that I harvested my celery from. At the time, I wasn’t sure if the the kale and lettuces would grow because of the celery root.

Little did I realize that after being harvested, the celery would continue to grow. So now the containers have celery growing along with lettuce and kale.

I don’t think it’s the optimal growing situation because I already know that celery plants like to grow in their own containers.

Much like “Ebony and Ivory” they are living in perfect harmony. Ok, I wouldn’t say perfect, but they are living together.

So I learned another one of these lessons in gardening – after harvesting a plant from a container, don’t jam more plants into it. Let the original plant grow and produce some more.

It seems so obvious as I type it, but I’m so used to picking something off the produce shelf and it not growing back that I assume that’s what’s going to happen here too.

What your gardening story that you look back and say, “What was I thinking?”

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HDGj8sIZ35A

Now that I’m over six months deep into this gardening game ‘m starting to notice a pattern in some of my plants. There is something wrong with their growth.

The cauliflower has yet to head and the cucumber leaves are yellowing. Now my spinach plants are starting to show some ill effects as well. They are getting some brownish dots on their leaves.

The one commonality between all of these plants is that I did not feed any of them. After I finished my initial planting with soil and compost, I never added more compost and nutrients.

Looking back on the containers, I’ve also come to realize that all of their soil lines were much lower than they initially were as well.

This leads me to believe that lack of nutrients is definitely a contributing factor to these symptoms. The cauliflower is the only plant that hasn’t yielded anything, so it’s not all bad, but just another lesson learned for me in this here gardening thing.

An important lesson learned – don’t forget about feeding your plants. Does this seem right to you?

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h2r_O4cqDCQ

Up until this point I’ve been pretty lucky with the pest problems in either of my gardens. The fire escape garden has a built in defense from pests being on the fourth floor. My backyard vegetable garden doesn’t have that luxury.

Back in June there were some small signs of pest problems, but nothing horrible. The containers seemed to be a pest deterrent.

I’ve since expanded to more than containers though to cinder block gardening and during my final fall planting used traditional pots.

The pests seem to be much more willing to mess with the plants in these. One of the cinder block had nearly all of the plants pulled up out of the soil. Two of the pots had huge holes dug into them and the plants were scattered.

My guess is that it’s squirrels doing this because, well I always see squirrels scampering around in the backyard and almost saw one approach the pots.

Now the question becomes how do I deter them? Thoughts?

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=291puzfePBE

I’m still figuring out what to do with my cucumber plants because the leaves are yellowing.

It’s just over a month since I moved my cucumber plant across the yard. The plant was moved for a few reasons. First being that it was outgrowing the trellis that I built for it and needed more support, so I moved it close to the fence to train it up. The second being that the leaves were yellowing, which I thought was due to sun exposure.

The plant is growing along the fence, still bearing fruit and blooming. That’s nice, but the leaves are still yellowing. My next guess is that it’s due to the lack of nutrients, so I threw some left over compost that I had in the container.

The important part is that the plant is still producing because I’m about functionality first and aesthetics second. My guess is that the yellow leaves can’t be good for the long term health of the plant though, so I’d like to remedy that.

What’s your thoughts on what to do when cucumber plants yellow?

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LqjNPE149tc

Now that I have my final fall planting done in my backyard vegetable garden, I’m starting to look back and evaluate my first season of gardening. As I look at my garden, I ask myself…why did I grow radicchio?

I can’t complain about the way that it’s growing and would definitely recommend it, which is more than I can say for cauliflower.

The problem is that I just haven’t used it at all. So what’s the point of growing something if I’m not going to use it. It’s not that impressive for me to tell people that I am growing radicchio. I need to either figure out how to use it or not grow it again.

Any suggestions for using radicchio?

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p9NTwcT_bzU

With the fall season upon us, I can look back at my initial May planting and say that I’m most disappointed in the cauliflower plant.

Of all the plants, it’s the one that has done the least. It’s pretty much done nothing.

A few weeks ago, I also said that I wouldn’t recommend growing red peppers in small spaces, but was proven wrong when they started to bloom again.

At least that I got some peppers out of those plants though. With the cauliflower, I’ve gotten nothing.

Here’s my thoughts on what could be going on:

• It was a bad plant.
• I planted too many (3) plants in one container.
• Cauliflower just doesn’t work in containers.
• It takes a really long time to head up, and I am being impatient.

At this point, I’d have to say that I really wouldn’t recommend growing cauliflower in containers, especially if you have limited space. That container could be used for something much more productive and rewarding.

What’s been your experience with growing cauliflower?

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZXBii4HiAHk