New Container for New Tomatoes

Of all the tomato seeds I started earlier in the spring, these are what remain. The strongest of the bunch. Five opalka and two brandywine. They've been spending their nights out on the balcony for a while now and are ready for more growing space. Of these, I'll only grow half. The weather has been good and I could have planted these out last week.

I was planning to plant one of the brandywine tomato plants in this self-watering container I made several years ago from a 68 litre plastic tote but last year it started to leak so it was time for a replacement. I've used this old tote for growing watermelons, tomatoes and pumpkins. The plastic is very brittle after years of sunlight exposure.

The replacement that I built is a similar tote. I reused the inside part from the old container. For this container I used more plastic cable ties to secure the inner part to the outer container. When filled with potting soil, the walls of the tote tend to budge out so these extra ties should prevent some of that. I also cut the edge of the lid and secured it to the inside of the tote to use as a sort of tube for watering. And I installed a float switch so if and when I ever get around to wiring up a controller to refill the water reservoir in this container, it will know when the reservoir is full so it can shut off the pump.

So much more to do before I can plant though. I still need to clean out a few more big containers and I need to build some new ones for some melons I want to plant. And that means building a new trellis also.

Snow Tomorrow

Doesn't matter how good my intentions are: I always start my gardening late. I started tomato and pepper seeds at the start of April and I probably should have started them in the middle of March. I've been burned by starting too early so maybe that's why I hesitate. My tomatoes are up and doing well but the peppers are slow. Especially the Jimmy Nardello's. I seem to remember having problems with those last time I tried them.

The weather has been amazing these past few days. Over 20 C which is unusually warm for this time of year. But tonight we're expecting freezing rain and apparently up to 5 cms of snow tomorrow. Temps will be well below 0 C again for the next couple of nights.

Getting Ready for 2014

It seems like there's snow falling here every other day now. It's been a few years since I've seen this much snow.

I had to take a bit of a break from the balcony in 2013. With a couple of family vacations that summer I didn't feel I had the time to do much gardening on the balcony. I did manage to get a couple of tomato plants going and they did well until early August when I left them for a week without water. A few parsley plants I planted grew well despite the occasional drought. One thing I planted that grew really well were ground cherries. I had a single plant that sprawled out to dominate one end of the balcony, putting out lots of fruit for most of the summer.

This summer I need to fix up some containers. The large tote that I've been using as a self watering container for a few years now; that has been home to crops like pumpkin, watermelon and tomatoes; sprung a leak and no longer holds water. So it's time to replace it with a new one. Not necessarily something bigger but perhaps something a little more durable. Mind you, I got quite a bit of use out of that old plastic tote.

I've also got some ideas to automate the task of watering. I want to be able to take off for a week and not have to think about watering plants. I'm determined to put my engineering skills to use and solve this problem.

Squirrel

Went out to water the plants yesterday and as I turned to go back inside I saw something move in a reflection in the window that caught my attention. A squirrel had somehow scaled the 18 floors to the top of my building.

He was sitting on the top ledge of the building when I saw him. Just when I was starting to think he was stuck up there, he very quickly crawled down to my neighbours balcony and sat for a bit before returning to the top of the building. Within a few minutes he was gone again. We have lots of black squirrels around here - I see them everywhere. But this was the first time I've seen one scale an 18 floor building.

Goodbye Celery

Something I haven't paid much attention to all season is my celery. I planted 4 plants of Utah back in May and watched it very slowly grow to what it is now. Some of the leaves are starting to yellow, probably because I didn't add enough fertilizer to the soil at the beginning of the season and didn't apply it regularly throughout (I was kind of lazy this year). We plucked off stalks from time to time whenever we needed it. One of the plants ended up in a tomato sauce last week and the other three just landed in a big soup pot.

It wasn't a bad celery. It certainly needed more attention to be good enough to snack on raw although some of the inner stalks we're tasty. The stalks didn't get big and juicy but they had a nice celery flavor. I wish I could have given it more sunlight.