Urban Gardening Year 2

Suffice to say, last year's attempt at growing some vegetables didn't pan out. Out of the numerous lettuce plants, two tomato plants, 4 cucumbers plants and 2 strawberry plants, I got 2 grape tomatoes, a few lettuce leaves and 4 or 5 strawberries.

This year, I am armed with more info, more experience, fertilizer and more determination.

Here is this year's attempt at container gardening inside my apartment. These pics were taken a few days ago on the 8th, so there has been some more growth since then.

The red bucket is a yellow summer squash plant flanked by a pair of cherry tomato plants. The little cup in the window sill are basil seedlings. The little cap in the squash container contains neem oil (see next post for what it is), which is a natural essential oil that helps to repel pests, particularly spider mites, which killed my cucumbers last year.



I am also trying my hand at upside down gardening in order to conserve space. A 2 liter bottle was converted to grow cucumber. I also planted a lettuce seed on top since it is a companion plant to cucumber. In the bag, I have another cherry tomato plant growing. On top of the soil, I have also planted some basil seeds since it can help to improve the flavor of the tomato plants and can also repel pests. So far, the cucumber is doing great and the upside down tomato plant looks a little sad but no hope is lost yet.


A closer look at the cucumber.


My container of black eyed simpson lettuce (same as I grew last year). Most lettuce varieties grow better in cooler weather but the black eyed simpson is more heat and sun tolerant. Next year, I shall try a cooler variety in order to free up some space for other plants that need more sun. This year, I added in used (but dried out) coffee grounds since coffee grounds are high in nitrogen and lettuce craves nitrogen.


And last but not least, a family of sunflowers and cosmos (on the end to the right) that I will hopefully be able to have flower this year. Last year's attempt with flowers didn't work so well.


One thing I am doing different this year is actually using fertilizer and pollinating the flowers by hand since I don't have any bees that live inside my apartment. I just didn't think about it last year :)

Garden Update - Tomatoes

The Big Boy seedling I bought a couple of weeks ago is starting to flower. I must be doing something right :)

Garden Update - Lettuce

The lettuce seeds I planted 7 days ago have finally sprouted. Well, at least two of them did. If all goes well, I should have my own lettuce to eat within a month or so.

Urban Gardening

I've lived in the same apartment in L.A for nearly 4 years. Every year after the summer is over, I always say that I need to start growing my own vegetables in the uber sunny corner of my kitchen. Well, this is the year that I finally did.

I'm starting small first to get a feel of things and will expand as I gain more experience (and reconfigure the kitchen to utilize as much space as possible).

First up, strawberry and tomato seedlings. All the plastic lids and containers I didn't throw into the recycling bin have finally come in handy!


I'm also very cost conscious and recycle/reuse as much as I can. Instead of running out and buying purty containers, I cut the top of a two liter bottle and used it to house one of my tomato plants. I used a rectangular food container I already had to house my two strawberry seedlings. Since I also had an abundance of non-recyclable plastic bottle caps, I hot-glued four of them to the bottom of the strawberries' new home to help with draining (after I drilled holes into the bottom of the container). The bottlecaps act as "risers" so that the bottom of the container is not sitting in the drain tray (which is the lid of the rectangular container).

Strawberries to the right and lettuce to the left.


I also got super inspired to grow lettuce, cucumbers and daisies from seeds. I decided to try out the lettuce first as it wasn't warm enough yet to start the cucumbers. Again, I used a food container I had laying around and drilled drain holes on the bottom and glued four bottlecaps to the underside. Various blogs on growing container vegetables suggested putting the container into a plastic bag after seeding to create a makeshift greenhouse so the condensation from within will keep it moist and help with germination. Holes were cut on top of the plastic bag to help with ventilation.

In the next few days to a week, I will be seeding the cucumbers and daisies. Will also start seeding another variety of lettuce. If all goes well, I will cut down on the amount of produce I will have to purchase.

As long as I can stay motivated, I will try to update at least weekly the progress of my urban garden.