Hello Steemians, today I take a break from my primary love, science. I do this to just make a simple post to share another part of my self with all of you. Today I will share the plants that I am growing for the summer. I have not been a gardener for many years, and I certainly don't have what you could call... a green thumb. I live in a modestly small apartment and am not provided with the necessary land to have a full garden (which I hope in the future that I will someday be able to have, I would love to own a home at some point, alas the Boston housing market is exceedingly expensive!)
Since I am not provided with land to have a garden I plant a few things in some pots, and grow them on my patio. Previous years I have always just bought pre-potted and greenhouse grown seedlings and transplanted them. This year my girlfriend bought me a variety of seeds to plant such that I could grow the necessary plants to make my favorite snack, SALSA (yumm).
I mentioned above that I don't have a green thumb right...so I planted some seeds in starter pots to later transplant. I planted seeds for roma tomatoes, yellow onions, cilantro, jalapenos, and anaheim peppers. I then got a variety of seedlings for all of these various plants, I was pretty pleased with the success rate of the seed germination. I let the seedlings grow for quite some time, then attempted to transplant them into small pots for them to really begin to take hold.
This Was A Huge Mistake!
I don't know if I transplanted them too early, perhaps I did, because I managed to kill my tomato plants, my onions, and somehow I managed to even kill my cilantro (it was doing so well one day, then the next day all plants were dead... I didn't over or under water them... maybe cilantro hates me?). A few did survive:
Anaheim Pepper
Jalapeno Pepper
My little jalapeno gets her own story. This was a pepper, the only one of 6 seedlings that didn't immediately die. It just sort of sat in its pot for a month or so, not growing not doing anything. I figured it wasn't going to make it.. until one day when I came home from work and checked on all of them to ensure that they were not too dry. I saw that it had finally started to grow, I am pretty happy that I can add this little pepper plant to my list of successes! She may have been chewed on by a bug a bit, but shes a fighter. I look forward to tasting the peppers she provides me with.
Other Seedlings I Bought When I Thought I Killed All Of My Own
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If you look closely you can see that even a tomato or two have started to grow (thanks bees!)
Serrano Pepper
For flavor with a little bit of heat you just cant beat a serrano. My favorite pepper.
Cayenne Pepper
I grow cayenne's because I like to dry them, crush them and make my own red pepper flakes for cooking with. I get much better heat and a much stronger flavor then anything I have ever bought in the store. One plant usually makes enough peppers to last me all year!
Mixed Red And Green Leaf Lettuce
There is nothing better on a sandwich then fresh lettuce that you have just picked!
Herbs
Can't cook great fresh stuff with out fresh herbs, so I am growing some of my favorites. Oregano, Thyme, and Basil.
Finally A Bit of Lavender For Some Color
Plus, who doesn't love the delicate smell of lavender?
It may not be much but all I have is my pots! I love to grow plants, it's nice to take care of these living creatures that provide me with wonderful things to eat. One of the biggest joys of the summer is caring for my plants and making great food with them to share with friends and loved ones.
Thank you for taking a look at this post. I hope you are not disappointed that its not a breakdown of science. I thought maybe people would like to know that there is more to me then just facts and figures.
Growing your own food is the best, and It don't need a real garden.
Check out my monster tomato plants :-)
Nice Post, upvoted and followed.
Woah! Those are HUGE! Fantastic! I wish I had success like that!!
NICE!! :) :)
Great Post. Sometimes I like to plant seeds right in the big pot that way the plants won't get the transplant shock. If the first seed doesn't take then I add another seed and repeat until I get a healthy plant.
This is a really good idea, I think I may try this next year. Thank you!
Nice variety! Had a ton of "volunteer" tomatoes, cukes and squash plants from last year in my square foot garden beds, so I filled up dirt into as many rubbermaid totes as I could and my whole garden is surrounded with 50 additional plants! Also plant potatoes in stacking tires, too. Kick em over in the fall and get 50 lbs of taters!
Sounds amazing! You must have a sizeable garden, 50 extra plants is a lot. I wish I had those extra tomato plants ;)
I guess you and my dad would probably get along well. He also love growing plants and he does what you did. He even grow them in tin cans. Got these cool hands that never make plants wither. Awesome post.
Thank you, his hands sound better than mine!
I didn't mean to sound like that. I'm just so proud of my dad because he's really hardworking. 😊 And what you're doing really helps the environment. I hope more people do this kind of growing plants in the cities where there are less spaces for gardening.
You didn't sound like anything, I was just being silly.
Oh. I took it wrong. Haha. I was the one being silly.
Then we both are :D
Haha. Indeed. I enjoyed talking to you @justtryme90!
Happy gardening!!!
Hope you are enjoying the harvests :-)
So cool! I (we) plant many of the same herbs. My favorite is basil. Do you pinch off the top when it has grown about 3 "levels" high? That's a great way to make them much bigger and taller. The two leafs on each side will then start a new branch on each side and keep growing higher. :)
I didn't know that, I usually re-pot the top node when it forms three with rooting powder and end up with more basil plants. The plants usually then split at the top, but I never thought about just doing that by itself. Thanks for the tip.
No problem :) They look very healthy and nice btw!
I try to take good care. Sometimes it's hard not to care too much. Then I usually overwater...
Yeah..this year I have no control. I was really into it couple of years ago, but I don't have the time now. Trying to put the responsibility on my 3 year old..but that goes so and so. However they're all healthy, so..looks like we're lucking out this year :)
What you can grow in your backyard always tastes so much better, not to mention the convenience of it
I do it for the taste above all. Especially tomatoes. Homegrown tomatoes don't taste anything like store bought ones, ripening on the vine and picking right before you eat it makes all the difference.
ohh myyyy!! you have a lavender plant! :)
My girlfriend loves lavender, so I really bought it and care for it for her.
Sweet!! I am growing lavender from seeds and it's dying now. Sad story. 😂
:(
I'm sorry to hear this.
no worries :) how long have you been planting? your plants looks healthy :)
Only for a few (like 3) years. I used to grow stuff as a child and have been refinding my enjoyment of it now again as an adult.
gardening really is enjoyable :)
Just need a little bit of mary-juwanna in there and everything will be gooooooood. bites on a handful of doritos
Haha, I could grow it. It's legal in Massachusetts. My landlords are not the kind of people that would approve of me doing so, based on our conversations.
1 or 2 small autoflowering never tipped of the neighbors or landloards :P
maybe your neighbours do not really care because the smell a single plant, even autoflower, produces is enough for anyone in the near vicinity to know what's going on :)
My father loves gardening a lot and I've always enjoyed watching him plant these crops in the pots and placing them everywhere. He says its so relaxing!!
It's pretty nice yeah. One of the joys of summer I've found.
Container gardens work well as long as the containers are large enough and you stay on top of the watering. I have a large garden but I always do a some things like peppers and cherry tomatoes in containers also. I have all raised beds so I guess you could say they are all big containers. Your stuff looks great. Good job.
Thanks!
Looks like we are few growers, ready for SteemGrow, the new platform on Steem which incentivize people to grow their own food and help each other by posting/commenting/giving advise to other growers :)
would be a great website to use
great post btw!
We are usually having our own garden every year. This year, unfortunately, this is not possible for various reason.
We were very like you in the beginning, trying things more or less randomly (yeah, I know, information can be found on the internet, and information is often contradictory...). With time, we are getting better and better and we managed to learn from our mistakes!
I am looking forward to 2018 where we will again be able to grow our vegetables again!
Hopefully with a better success ratio then I had this year!
Sounds scientific. :D And like my experiments at the bench.
So... you are growing your lunches on your benches!!! Damned! :D
Hah, yeah. OSHA would love that :)
Great Article! When I lived in Astoria Queens for approximately three years, I had a 10 foot by 10 foot backyard full of potted plants since it was all pavement :)
All pavement but full of life!
Yup! I had tomatoes, blackberries, blueberries, strawberries, watermelons! We tried grapes but they were a little tough to grow in the New York Weather!
Growing plants is the best! My wife got me into it and now every year I make sure we have a lovely garden!
New Hampshire grapes, admittedly in the midst of fixing the supporting posts.
Unfortunately they need harvesting just when all the apple crop takes up our attention but we have had some success!
That looks awesome!
Thanks. So far we have made grape juice because we didn't get around to harvesting them early enough.
Growing up my neighbors had Concord grapes growing, and I lived in northern Pennsylvania, so similar weather to New York. Perhaps it was just a difficult grape cultivar you had?
Either way sounds like a great group of plants, lots of tasty stuff.
Nice Post ...I love the Plants and I have a garden of Apples beside my home let me share one photo of my garden with you...
I also use pots for planting in my Urban House...
Really cool. My parents have two apple trees in their back yard, used to have a prune tree as well but it got sick. I would love to have a cherry tree at my future home.
You are doing grwat mate specially planting the herbs. Peppers are super healthy as they cintain antioxidants that helps in lowering blood pressure and cholesterol level.
I don't care as much about their health properties, as I do about their taste! The healthyness is just a bonus :)
Start considering health benefits as well. Some of them are anti cancer.
Yeah, there isn't a ton of evidence to support the ability of what you eat to fight cancer. Whether or not they prevent is a different story and difficult to prove as one can not prove a negative.
This comment has received a 0.44 % upvote from @booster thanks to: @cryptokraze.
Sorry about those that didn't make it. At least you have survivors and they look healthy. We do container planting, too but it's hard to make them survive with the extreme heat and dust (house beside a highway). Our onion leeks have been dying and even those resilient plants like lemon grass end up being on the dry side despite constant watering. Ever tried vertical gardening, too? Or the hanging pots?
I haven't tried vertical gardening no, and I have no hooks for hanging plants. Maybe next year I will purchase some sort of stand to hang stuff from.
Yeah being becides a busy road would definitely make things more difficult.
Awesome! Hopefully you can show us more pictures then. I lost hope here. Would probably make it a goal to move (whenever that would be). Good luck with the gardening!
I will do an update later in the season for this years plants. Of course I will continue to post in subsequent years as well.
Great post. Thank you for sharing. I also enjoy seeing plants grow. Maybe you check my latest posts :) I wish all the best!
Thank you!
Doing a salsa garden in pots is a great idea! I love to see people thinking outside the box and doing gardens everywhere. Anyone can garden without land or space and it's a wonderful inspiration to see your pics.
Thanks!
I'm no expert but have a little experience. The main problem about transplanting seedling little plants is temperature difference. People will grow the seedlings inside, then BAM! they put them outside in the heat. That's usually what kills them. They need to be grown in the same temperature. I know a professional tomato farmer--I'm not kidding--in Mt. Airy, MD named Brandon Hosley. I'll see if I can get him to come here to help.
Hmm, I wonder if it was too warm in the sun when I moved them out there. That could have been what happened. They were too young still for temperature change.
@grow-pro is on Steemit now, so I'm hoping he checks this thread out.
Nice garden you have here. I got tomatoes in a summer house,just planted, thinking did to late. And of course what can be better then fresh salads?
Going to follow you, and hope to get follow back, got some gardening stuff to show, cheers.
Keep doing good job @justtryme90
You might still get some tomatoes, they grow pretty darn fast when the weather is warm with enough water. Will give you fruit late in the season though probably.
Thanks, and I did as well. I like garden stuff.
For sure, maybe gonna post some pics later in summer with my tomatoes.
But in our side of earth...last years summers are totally short and strange, with summer i mean stable C' what stands for a while... if you unlucky nights can be under 0, so you can imagine whats happens then with plants... kinda hard in the beginning, but anyways good luck with your plants ✌️
You too, will wait to see your results :)
Little bit related only, has anyone here tried birch juice in spring? Don't even need a garden for thet, just a nice birch tree, a hole in it and a jar, jummy!
I have never had it, but I had birch beer (like root beer) and it was tasty.
Tastes like water at first, just sweeter, after a couple of days starts getting a little bit bitter, but a lot of people prefer it that way, at least where I come from :D Anyways, it is very healthy, loads of vitamins and only harvest-able in spring. I have never drunk birch beer, though.
Good job on your plants - I would say cultivating life is certainly science!
Next week I am returning to my old job as a gardener (just for the summer), which im looking forward to. Im more a destructive force, but I enjoy the planting side as well. You just reminded how much satisfaction it is see something grow out of the earth!
Thanks, it's pretty rewarding to care for them and watch them both grow and bear gifts. :)
I love my patio garden! I also planted some veggies from seed and they all died, so don't feel too bad. Also, cilantro is finicky, I managed to kill mine as well. Currently I have beets, carrots, kolorhabi, lettuce, spinach, cherry tomatos and a whole bunch of herbs and flowers growing. Good luck with your garden this summer!
Thank you! Well at least it sounds like getting stuff growing from seeds is tricky. I'm still happy with the plants I have, hopefully things turn out well. I'll post again at the end of the season my results, good or bad. :)
Awesome! That's what it's all about. Growing what you can with the space you have. Are you into saving your seeds? I'm all about saving and sharing heirloom varieties. So many have been lost over the years so it's up to us. Glad to have found you on here. Grow forth!
I mean, I saved some seeds from cilantro to try to get to grow again, and the results were described above... I failed :(
I will try to save some other seeds this time around as well.
My best advice on seed saving is to be growing heirloom varieties and leave one of each plant go unharvested. Lettuce for example will eventually bolt up 4 ft, flower and when the flowers dry out, they will become 10,000 or so seeds. Similar with dill, cilantro and many others. Some things like peppers, I just let one of the peppers dry out and then you can open it up and remove the seeds when they're dry.
There are some great youtube videos on seed saving if you're looking for help on a specific variety. Stay in touch and I'd love to offer any advice I can. Onward and upward!
You've got some good plants there! Your herbs are doing really well. It's tough when you don't have much space. But it looks like your apartment garden is working out pretty well, even with a few problem plants. Happy gardening!
Thanks, I am trying to make the best with what little space I have to work with!
You're welcome. You are doing it well!
I love me some peppers! if you ever get the chance grow some Carolina reaper peppers. They are very hot but when dried you only need a little and they taste amazing, the taste spreads as well as the heat. Congrats on the little pepper that could :)
I was also surprised recently when I had lavender in some food dishes that actually really added something because I had never had it in food before. Keep on steemin!
Carolina reaper! Oh gosh, now I love spicy peppers but those are REALLY spicy! Maybe I can try to grow them next season... see just how hot they are :)
I never thought about incorporating lavender into food, since I am growing it here maybe I can take a look into some dishes that use it. Sounds interesting!
Lavender is good in a sun tea, too. It's a easy way to get a sense of what lavender flavor is like. I made this yesterday, from spruce tree needles, spearmint, and lavender flowers. It's really good!
Seems like an interesting combination, thanks for the suggestion.
It was a good combination. But any of them, alone, is good, too!
i have no source to back it up. But when I re pot them I prefer to do it after sunset. This way its less of shock for them.
Keep it green
peace
I agree, I always repot just before dark after the sun sets. It allows them to have a good cool first few hours.
@floridaygypsy Im glad you with me on this, I learned it from my "mentor". I dont know the exact reason behind it. But I know its good for the plants:)
I also like to keep my soil cool
Thanks for the suggestion!
I would say that there is no excuse not to have a garden even if space is limited! Especially when you can grow so many items in pots! Thanks for sharing, @justtryme90
I agree. And plants like tomatoes make excellent hanging plants also. I have a small area and it is a jungle.
I really like hanging plants and tomatoes 🍅 are always an added bonus!
Yes, they are @breakingtonight. I can not get too many.
I hear ya! :)
My thoughts as well! Growing plants is a great thing.
It truly is, @justtryme90
I agree! @justtryme90
nice garden :)
Thank you! :)
wow great plants
Thanks! I am trying my best... I wish I hadden't killed so many. Makes me a bit sad.
having a lot plants make my feeling fresh ;) dont kill plant my friend ;)
I will try not to kill any more! I was depressed when my seedlings didn't make it.
That's inspiring :) It will be informative to see an instructional video about how to do this successfully.
How to plant a plant in a pot? I just kind of stick them in the dirt...
Yeeha! My wife has a green thumb. We're growing... too many tomato plants. We need to find people to give them to. They're crowding each other out in the pots we have (also no garden space)
Awesome, I wish I had more than one! You can't have too many tomatoes, mmmm so good. I could make some tomato sauces and can them if I had more than one plant. I love cooking, and cooking with fresh home grown ingredients is the best.
If you were in Los Angeles, we would be more than happy to give you several.
Unfortunately I am on the exact opposite side of the country!
:P
I never get too many tomatoes. They are easy to make up into sauces and I dry them and freeze them also. I garden in pots, but still grow over 50% of my food. I do use the biggest pots I have for the tomatoes and peppers.
We just don't have the room for them. Huzzah for growing your own!
Thats the problem with small spaces.
Yes it is!
I use portable pots for my plants since I don't have a garden.
So you're in the same boat as me :D
😀 🤣 👍
The nice thing is that anything can be a pot, as long as you put holes for drainage.
Exactly.
cool post....thumbs up
Thanks! I appreciate you taking a look :D
This got the vote and the resteem because not only did I find value in it, I think my followers will too!
As soon as I manage to earn enough consistently to upgrade to a place with a patio (bees indoors really suck). I'll be posting about how to garden for a household of 3 adults and a baby in less than a 10X10 space.
Sounds like a good idea for a series of posts :)
Oh my...I once had a plant that survived. I truly loved that plant, and then we moved and it died. LOL! I was not blessed with green fingers!
Hey @giantbear, nice to see you. Taking care of plants seems like it should be so easy.. but it's definitely not!
Nope I am not confident about plants at all, but my kids and animals survive so I must be doing something right. My sister in law talks to her plants when she plants them and they grow beautifully...perhaps that is the trick. LOL! ( I unfollowed many people because my feed was flooded and now I get a chance to communicate better with the people I really choose to follow.)
Hmm, maybe I need to start giving mine some encouragement.
Hi JTM. I have not been upping almost no-one last few days because I must recharge SP over 90%. It went to 14% few days ago and can't use the slider atm. Will up you and everyone soon. I'm sorry about it.
Don't worry about me, worry about the new users who are writing good content but nobody is paying attention to.
Ok! Thank you :-)
This is very motivational! I live in an apartment complex and have no land! Upvoted and followed!
You can still grow some plants, some will even grow okay inside, if you don't have an area outside to put pots.
Fantastic garden. I followed and upvoted. I grow as much as I can in pots and have trees, veggies, herbs, fruits, ect. I have a jungle around the RV always. I love to see what the rest of you are doing. Thanks for sharing @justtryme90. Followed, upvoted, and re-steemed. Shared across other social media also. Great job.
Thank you for your kindness, and lots of pots around sounds very nice. Its great to be surrounded by life.
Great post! I'm trying to start my first vegetable and fruit garden this year, and I'm very excited about it. I love organic produce but I'd much rather grow my own, so that was my motivation. Look forward to hearing more of your lovely posts about gardening :)
@justtryme90 Thank you for sharing! My small garden is in pots also. For two reasons...we rent and didn't know how long we would live here...and the soil quality is horrible here and it would take a lot of work to mend it. I am getting ready to write a post on my garden soon. For some reason, my peas took off great but all of a sudden died. Followed! Looking forward to reading more of your posts!
I have never tried to grow peas in a pot! That sounds like a fun challenge!
Someday maybe I'll be able to grow plants. For some reason they always die because I forget to water them. I am a huge fan of Jalapenos (and I didn't realize you could grow cayenne). Nice!
You'll get there. Yeah hot peppers are amazing. :)
I don't think I have a green thumb. But not sure if you've tried it, but this hot sauce called Dave's insanity is AMAZING. It's like $6 for the whole bottle and it will last you over a year. You only need like a DROP for an entire bowl of soup or chili. It's my go to hot sauce. Cheers
I have had Dave's insanity sauce before. It's indeed super spicy. Lives up to the insanity in it's name IMO.
I like it because it is just an amazing value. I can use a bottle of Tabasco in an evening, but Dave's insanity.... lasts me forever.
Inspiring post! Thank you for writing. I also do have a garden inside and find it so good. I will follow you to see more of this :)
Thank you! I will show more, but my major contributions to steemit are science related posts, so gardening will be the exception rather than the norm. I don't have enough going on to post about it regularly (everyone would get pretty bored of my few plants!)
Upvoted, re-esteemed and followed.
I believe there aren't enough gardeners out there. It's such wonderful hobbie and it really makes you appreciate the effort it takes to grow food, a basic commodity which we all take for granted today. So thanks for sharing ans inspiring others to grow. I look forward to more related posts.
For the curious ones, I have also recently posted about my garden.
Great success. I live in the centre of the mega-city Shanghai so there ain't much room for gardening either. I've had some great success with potted plants, including more peppers and tomatoes than I could shake a fist at...
Anyway, Happy I found a scientist - Following!
Seems like peppers and tomatoes are the potted plant gardeners ticket to success.
another way is hydrophoniex,
Also a good suggestion, thanks!
This post received a 2.3% upvote from @randowhale thanks to @justtryme90! For more information, click here!
You can do a lot with pots and 5 gallon buckets. When I lived in a second floor apartment I had tomatoes, peppers, vines and even a couple of tea roses growing on my balcony. The apartment manager called it "The Lindenberger Botanical Gardens!" Sorry I did not save any pictures from that era. But gardening can be fun no matter where you live!
Sounds like it was pretty cool.