We've grown herbs in pots for years, and have given tomatoes a shot a few times. While they've produced some fruit, we found that small pots made small tomatoes with thick skins. Our Beefsteaks ended up the size of Cherry Tomatoes! We've also been plagued with Blossom End Rot (black undersides) and skins that crack, both afflictions apparently due to insufficient regularity in their watering. We tried lettuce last year and had some good luck, and over the past couple of years we've had bumper crops of hot chili peppers.
So this year we are pushing it a little further. We've put in another crop of lettuces and they're doing extremely well, due mostly, we think, to the slow and steady June we've had, without too much blazing sun. The arugula seems to mature the most quickly; we've actually used it all up on several weeks' worth of Pizza Nights. By this past weekend the rest had grown so bushy that we had to do a major harvest. What a great salad that was!
The two shots above are from early this month.
These 3 shots are from June 18th
We're trying tomatoes again, Romas this year, and so far so good. They are flowering profusely, which means there should be plenty of fruit. Now the trick will be to maintain the consistent water they seem to so desperately need.
^May 31st
^June 18th
Building on past success with peppers, we're trying a couple of larger varieties. We've got some Shepherds- sweet red peppers with an elongated body- and more hot ones, but bigger- not the teeny little firecrackers. As you can see, they're already bearing fruit.
Finally, we decided to give string beans a whirl. We've planted several yellow bean plants, and lo and behold, we've got some little beans on the way! Who knows if enough will ripen at one time to provide even a single serving, but it's fun to see how things are developing.
And all this on a 4 foot wide balcony 12 floors up!! Look out, Oliver and Lisa, the new Green Acres has been born! Now, where's that pitchfork?...
courtesy maggiore.net
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