Thursday, June 14, 2007

Inside Out

We've done a lot this season, and a lot has changed since we started our patio gardening in March. Firstly, we didn't even start on the patio. We started our goodies inside: the rosemary from the indoor winter garden, five cayenne pepper seeds, five jalapeno pepper seeds, a lot of spinach seeds, and six marigold seeds. The rosemary was in it's own container, a small four inch pot. We planted each of the pepper types at opposite ends of a long window box along with four marigolds. In a smaller window box, we planted about 100 spinach seeds with two marigold seeds.

The spinach went out immediately because it's happy in cold weather. As soon as frost was no longer a threat, which was pretty late this year, the pepper box and rosemary moved out. We added about 16-24 seeds of cilantro and basil to the big window box in mid-April. At the same time, we bought a three tomato plants (one Santa F1 and two Patio F1). Only three cayenne and two jalapeno seeds germinated. The spinach, cilantro, and basil had high germination rates. Here's what everything looked like by the beginning of May:


As you can see, the spinach did great! You might wonder why we planted so many seeds. A friend, who has a successful balcony garden, said he did it this way. You get lots of baby spinach and progressively thin things out as you eat the baby spinach. Plus, we are trying to grow as much as possible in as little space as possible. It may lead to crowding or disease, but that's part of the experiment. How much do you think we can squeeze things? We are just finishing up the remaining spinach now and are looking for a summer nutritious green for sandwiches and salads. Chard, kale, who knows? Any suggestions?

And why the marigolds? The same friend said this would help with our past aphid problem by emitting noxious chemicals that aphids and other pests hate. For the most part, I think it has worked. I still have to do some aphid squishing, which I think is best kept under control by daily squishing. The only suspicious thing is that I sometimes find them on the underside of the marigold petals. What's that about? All I know is that there are WAY less aphids than last year. I think the marigolds have kept most of the aphids away and provided some pretty color to an otherwise monochromatic green patio garden.

I think the spinach provides additional support for my marigold success hypothesis. The marigolds didn't grow as quickly in the spinach box because they were shaded by the spinach, which grew quickly in the cold weather. When we harvested the last of the spinach, the clearance revealed a small, flowerless marigold and that the box had lots of aphids, both winged and unwinged, big and little. What do you do to deter garden pests from ever taking hold?

205 comments:

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モバゲー said...

今やモバゲーは押しも押されもせぬ人気SNS!当然出 会いを求めてる人も多い!そこで男女が出 逢えるコミュニティーが誕生!ここなら友達、恋人が簡単にできちゃいますよ

モバゲー said...

もう夏休みも終わりに近づき、この夏最後の思い出を作りたいと焦ってる方が、モバゲーのコミュニティーに書かれてましたよ!!折角なんで夏の思い出作りに協力して自分も美味しい思いをしてみるのはどうですか?大手スポンサーサイトが付いてるので全部タダですよ

グリー said...

最近はどこのSNSサイトも規制ばっかりで、ちょっと出 合いに関して書き込みするとアク禁食らうけど、夏休み終盤に差し掛かり色々なサイトを調べた結果、グリーだけはどうも規制が緩んでるみたいです。今がチャンスの時期ですよ

ツイッター said...

ツイッターで出 合 いを求めるのです。気の合う異性と交流して楽しいひと時をお過ごしください。登録無料で使えるので気軽さは100点満点!

モテる度チェッカー said...

夏休みももう終わりに近づきこのまま一人は寂しいのちがう?そこでモテる度チェッカーを使い自分がなぜモテないか診断してもらいましょう。10~20代の女性アドバイザーが多数在籍してるので、アドバイスを参考に夏終盤を楽しもう

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