Root Ball

I planted a few of the bigger tomato plants into larger containers but I had to clean out my larger self watering container before I could put my Gold Medal tomato plants in it. Last year this container was home to a pair of Brandywine Tomatoes. These plants were so big that the entire soil mass in the container was held together by the old roots and the roots extended well into the water reservoir at the bottom of the container.

The biggest annoyance I have with gardening on the balcony is finding space to clean up things like this. If I had a yard and a garden I'd just dump the container contents into the garden and break it up with a shovel. Maybe toss it into a composter. But on the balcony there's no place to dump it and I don't want to just dump it all into the dumpster. So normally I keep an empty tote handy for mixing soil and banging out old root balls. I like to reclaim as much potting soil as possible.

Tomatoes Ready to Plant

The tomatoes are hardening off on the balcony and some should be planted in their permanent homes this weekend. German Green, Black Cherry, Gold Medal, Opalka and Zapotec.

Cape Goosberry Seedlings

I'll need to plant these in bigger containers soon. They started out in the seed starting trays and a little over a week ago I transferred them to these little "juice box" containers.

From the last time I grew these I recall that they started out with really large leaves and the plants eventually grew quite tall with thick woody stems. I remember having a pair growing and one snapped off near the base of the "trunk". And it just happened to be the one with the heaviest fruit load.  This year I'm going to make sure they have proper support and protection from the wind.

Cucumbers and Watermelons

I seeded a few small pots with Talladega Cucumbers and Sugar Baby Watermelons. I usually start these way too early and have to deal with transplanting long skinny vines outside into bigger containers when it's still a little too cold for them thrive. I'll have to remember to do a better job of protecting these from the wind when I finally do get around to planting them out. It's been a while since I've had much luck with cucumbers.

Early Nutrient Deficiency

While inspecting my tender tomato seedlings I happened to notice that some of the leaves are developing a slight purple tinge and curled leaves: a sure sign of a nutrient deficiency. Perhaps phosphorous. And it's no surprise really. I'm a lazy gardener and should have applied a mild dose of general purpose ferts when the first true leaves appeared. So off I went to shop around for something, preferably with a higher P and K concentration to promote early growth.

But it occurred to me that I must have something kicking around at home. I don't need much and it doesn't have to be perfect. And sure enough I had a few options available. At first I considered using a very mild application of orchid fertilizer. It had a higher level of phosphorous but also a few micro nutrients. Probably things orchids need I suppose. Then I discovered the tail end of a bottle of an organic fertilizer solutions; 1-5-5 with a touch of Magnesium. Perfect. Hopefully it does the trick.