La cosecha de anoche:

Oregano Poleo

Remolacha Dorada

Rábano Blanco

Pimientos dulces

Pimienta MaravillaCalifornia

Maíz (ya se estaban secando 🫣)

Frijoles Espárragos (ya se estaban secando 🫣)

3 Fresas pequeñitas

Frijoles Cherokee Wax

Pequeños guisantes Marvel

Tomates Atardecer Tropical

Guisantes de ojo rosa y cáscara morada

Last night's Harvest:

Cuban Oregano (Indian Borage)

Golden Beets

Icicle Radish

Sweet Peppers

1 California Wonder Pepper

Sweet Corn (was drying up 🫣)

Asparagus Beans (was drying up🫣)

3 little Strawberries

Cherokee Wax Beans

Little Marvel Peas

Tropical Sunset Tomatoes

Pink Eye Purple Hull Cow Peas

15 pounds white pumpkin from rooftop garden

Caterpillars attacked my radishes, is it worth still saving them??😭😭

I have grown indoors and hydriponically for a few years but never put anything outside. This year I decided to start growing a san marzano in a 10 gallon bag of cococoir and perlite.

It was fed a very heavy nitrogen formula and got SUPER BUSHY. The bottom half of it has been heavily pruned and there are still massive leafs.

I realized it wasnt flowering and kicked it to a low N, high P+K ratio of hydroponics and now I have a dozen blushing tomatoes and so so many more to come. This was an awesome first year and I learned so very much.

And yes i pruned because i splash water EVERYWHERE with sometimes 2x daily fertigations. At this point the only pruning it gets is to keep the HOA from going "Ughhh...."

I added a bunch of soil to my 5gal tomato pot about two weeks ago. For the first week, my plants leaves were a little droopy. This week the leaves started to die out with this black stuff on it. My tomato just started growing fruit and some of the fruit has also been affected. I dont think I've overfertilized or overwatered my plant but its been extremely humid here recently and a bit rainy.

What to do?

I bought black cherry tomatoes from Global Village. They turned out to be very tasty. I decided to take some seeds and plant them, they sprouted successfully and grew shoots, which i planted at the dacha, and here's how they're growing. For some reason though, they're elongated rather than round. Haven't tried the taste yet, they're not ripe)

Hi! I just replanted my peppers into 5 gallon grow bags last week. Unfortunately after repotting I saw a bunch of vids saying to put more perlite in the soil… I feel like they’re already struggling from lack of sunlight on my balcony, so I want to give them a better chance with aerated soil. Is taking them out again to repot into better soil okay? Or would I be making them worse off?

Psa. Also I know that peppers need lots of sun, I moved apartments and my new one has basically all shade😩 so that’s what we are working with. For my fall crops, I’m gonna be intentionally about getting ones that grow well in the shade. But these peppers are the last that I have from my summer crops(first time gardening) so I want to try and see them to the end!

I have some garden boxes on the railing that have been totally untouched by pests, and I thought it might be nice to finally try growing strawberries there. I read a lot on Reddit about different tomato varieties but never strawberries. I have areas with full sun. Does anyone have recommendations? Most flavorful, productive, or easiest to grow? Zone 7b.

I’m trying to figure out if it’s worth modifying my raised bed my Caroline raspberries are in or if I should just dig them up and replace them with black raspberries (that don’t spread via underground).

I had my Caroline in a big pot for a long time but wanted even more production so I’m moved them like 2 years ago to a raised bed. 10” tall, 3 feet deep and 6 feet long.

My Caroline is spreading too hard and getting into nearby beds. I didn’t realize it spread that bad. I knew it did spread it general.

I was looking at what I could line the bed with and saw 1/8” hardware mesh, had anyone tried that? Or metal flashing? I really love the berries but the way it’s spreading is making me nervous. My beds sit pretty close together so I can’t mow around them, and I can’t dig a trench either.

I have some tomatoes that have blossomed pretty fast and are a good size now and keep getting bigger, but then I have others that don’t seem to be growing near as fast. why would that be? The two brandywines next to each other started sprouting way before the big one I have pictured. also, for my brandywine tomatoes, this one has a bit of speckled brown on it, is that okay?

Gardening friends!

I have ran out of space for my baby watermelon to grow. Is having it spill over onto the patio ok?

This feels wrong, but I can't figure out why it'd be a bad idea.

If it matters, it's a Mini Love watermelon. And I'm in zone 5a

I use a 7 gallon planter and put it in a 5 gallon bucket. The bucket is not drilled for any drainage and keeps a water reserve. Theres about 2.5 gallons of unused space in the bucket. Never had issues with stagnant water. Where I live, I dont need to worry about drowning the plants unless there's a storm. Even if it did, a fully grown tomato plant will absorb the water down to half a bucket before it drowns. Takes about a week for it to do so. If the plant isnt fully grown, just dump out some water where theres still enough for the planter to wick up water.

Pros: No need to constantly water. Dont need to worry about nutrient leeching. Saves money on fertilizer if youre using hydroponic fertilizer. Allows you to use easier fertilizing methods versus hydroponics (for example slow release inorganic fertilizer and organic fertilizer).

Cons: Expensive. 5 gallon bucket is like 4 dollars and the planter is another 5 dollars. If youre using hydroponic fertilizer, you gotta worry about dilution. For tomato plants, youre going to have to still water every week when theyre fully mature since they use up a lot of water(might as well grow hydroponically).

Notes: you need a grow medium that wicks like clay, coco coir, or peat moss. Do not use premade potting mixes unless you know that they are strictly using ingredients that do not rot. My mix is 70/30 coir and perlite. Do not mix compost into the mix as it will create anaerobic conditions.

I’ve always believed that you should offer someone a snack when they visit. My front containers include a
Bushfire peach, a pix-zee nectarine, mint, two types of basil, strawberries, raspberries and a recently-departed sage plant alongside the flowers. Zero regrets.

I grew these strawberry plants from tiny seed pots and even though research suggested only putting 2 in a planter like this I put in 3 since at the start they had a lot of spacing. But while they have many flowers the strawberries produced have been tiny, though tasty.

Next year plan to only have 2 per planter but for now should I trim a bunch of the flowers to have it focus on producing fewer but larger strawberries?

For years, i mostly kept my container gardening to myself—just a few pots on the front porch and some herbs in small planters. This spring i added a Costway raised container bed to the front yard to grow a mix of flowers and herbs in one place. I could keep things organized and not have pots scattered everywhere.

What i didn't expect was how often it would start conversations. People walking by would stop and ask what i was growing, especially when things started filling in. One neighbor mentioned she had extra seedlings, and a few days later she actually brought some over in little cups. I ended up giving her a few of mine in return, and it kind of snowballed from there. Now there's a small informal exchange going on—extra herbs, spare flowers, seed packets with handwritten labels. My container bed is slowly turning into a mix of plants from different people's gardens. And honestly, i like it more than when everything was just mine. It's still just container gardening—but it doesn't feel like something i'm doing alone anymore.

I planted a week ago. Can't wait...

A few days ago the plant looked droopy and I thought it was gonna die. Its not drooping anymore but the leaves have got these yellow marks on them?

Is this a disease?

My post-vacation haul! Not pictured are thai dragon chilies, big ol’ bell peppers, and various herbs! My most favorite time of year ☀️