July 25th, 2008 - 2:53 pm
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Y’all, this last week has been a trial. I don’t want to talk about the bad stuff, though, because the world is full of people who are kind and generous and good at heart, and the rest of ‘em are just not worth it.
So, you ask, the good stuff? On Wednesday I had a mini spa visit and afterwards stopped in this home decor store on a whim, lured by many, many large SALE signs. They actually had a lot of stuff I liked (the influences often seemed to be Asian and a touch Victorian and somewhat fairytale, which is a really inadequate description), and surprisingly good prices (especially given they’re in a pretty expensive shopping center). After a little hemming and hawing I picked up some framed art from the clearance section (four carved wood panels, each about a foot square), thinking it might fit a blank space in my bedroom. I’ve been meaning to buy some colorful fabric to stretch & staple over frames for that area, but for the price (and knowing how much longer my original plan could take) I couldn’t really go wrong. (So much for budgeting this month.) When I got them home I — well, okay, I went immediately to bed because it was almost 11 — but the next morning I propped them up along the back of my couch, eyeballed it, and decided they’d look perfect in that space. Which is fabulous because I’ve been kicking around ideas for that big blank spot forever and hadn’t yet hit on one I was totally thrilled with.
Other good stuff: tomorrow is Alex’s birthday party; he’s turning three. It’s amazing how time flies. I’m making his cake (and really need to get a frosting recipe chosen). And Sunday is my jumping clinic and the big move.
A week or two ago my cherry tomatoes finally started to ripen, and most days I find a moment to stand out on my balcony, eating one or two straight off the vine and watching the weather. Two days ago there was afternoon light so warm and unbelievable I felt I could fall right over the railing into a painting. This morning the most delicate of rain, a whispering mist of summer grey.
sansreves said: July 27th, 2008 at 9:51 am
1) I demand pictures!
2) How do you go about balcony gardening? I have exactly one two-foot tall jasmine vine in a pot, which I bought dangerously on a whim before knowing for sure that star jasmine can be trained as either a bush or vine and will thrive with very little supervision. Do your cherry tomatoes live in a pot? A hanging basket, perhaps? Do you have any idea what grows well in those long, narrow planters, in partial shade? I mean, I guess California gardening is going to be different than Minnesota gardening because of temperate weather, but I think I’ll get your input, anyhow.
rachel! said: July 29th, 2008 at 1:34 pm
1) I’ll try to get pics soon. I’ve been meaning to do a little video tour of the apartment, actually, since you can get a better idea of the space that way — but I also meant to do that in my last place, and you can see how that turned out… (You should do the same, btw!)
2) On my balcony I have:
- one big pot with a cherry tomato plant — I think it’s a 12″ diameter pot? The bigger the better with tomatoes, I’ve read; also, I highly recommend a tomato cage thingie, because I was too lazy to get one this spring and at first staking it up with little skewers from my kitchen worked, and then twist-tying some of the bigger branches to the balcony railing for support, but I did end up losing a few branches in storms, and I think it would have just been an easier/better thing overall to have a tomato cage from the beginning (I did end up getting one a few weeks ago).
- one hanging basket with a grape tomato plant — a ‘tumbling tom’ variety that’s designed for hanging baskets — my basket is on the smallish side and I wish I had a bigger one, because my plant didn’t get all that large.
- another hanging basket with that liner stuff, with a regular tomato plant growing from the bottom and marigolds planted on top, much like Anjali’s from this post, except I planted a lot more marigolds; I ended up pulling up a bunch of them because my little tomato plant wasn’t growing much. Since then I’ve been obsessive about watering it carefully and daily — I don’t think it was getting enough before, and in the past few weeks it’s tripled in size. I don’t think I’d do it again. Out of my three tomato plants, the one in the big pot is far and away doing the best.
- a big rectangular planter (I think this is the long, narrow planter type you mentioned) with basil, mint, oregano, and chives. I picked up one of those faux windowbox thingies that can hook over a railing (if that description makes any kind of sense…I’m running on so little sleep right now). Important lesson it took me way too long to learn: hang it so it’s facing inward and you won’t lose half your dirt in big rainstorms. Everything has been doing well except the basil. I am a basil failure; last year mine withered and this year it flowered really quickly. I don’t think I’ll try it next year — if I do, I won’t plant it with the others because they have different water wants. I will also research how the hell you’re supposed to harvest it (how often, best ways to cut, etc). I’ve loved having the rest of the herbs, though.
- a couple random pots of marigolds, because I bought way too many for the hanging planter with the tomato.
I would recommend full sun for tomatoes, or at least reading up on how they do in partial shade — all the tags that came with mine said full sun. I think most edibles do best in full sun, though I’m sure some are shade (or part shade) plants — I want to say lettuces do fine in shade, but I don’t know for sure. I know MN has a bunch of gardening/horticultural information online (I think through the university), so I imagine Cali has something similar available. Or — what do you see lots of at farmer’s markets? It seems like everything grows well in Cali — we seem to get a ton of our produce from there.
I’ve actually done better with my balcony plants than I have a lot of indoor plants — they just thrive outside in/near the sun. I’ve killed my share of houseplants I think from lack of sun. (Well, and probably incorrect watering.) I have to say my favorite houseplant type is still the Liam variety — I have cuttings from that original plant (almost eight years old now!) in my house and in the office. It’s survived not enough water, too much water (no such thing, actually — I have one cutting growing in a vase with just water), total lack of sunlight, and being frozen. Not edible, but hardy!