You Grow Girl™

oh my!
each day as I look out onto my third floor ledge, I see another reason for exclamation. Everything is growing up so fast, even on the hotter-than-hades third floor ledge. I am watering twice a day, pruning, and fertilizing with the amazing Neptunes Harvest fish slurry fertilizer. I just finished reading the book Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser. Basically he explores the relationship between the growth of fast food franchises and the changing buisiness of agriculture in America. A truly fascinating read, vegetarian or not, it really opened my eyes to a lot of things. After an eye opening expose on the human cost of giant corporate slaughter houses, as well as their enviromental impact , the author interviews a real colorado rancher who does things the organic and 'old fashioned' way. His basic point is that "nature is smart as hell", and I have to agree, whole heartedly! Why mess with something that is tried, tested, and true!
Since my whole operation is at eye level, I have the opportunity to get up close and personal with every little planty detail. I was eyeballing the blooms on the pest covered eggplant the other day, and it is a gross and phallic little thing! yet perfectly designed for getting pollinated. It has a big eye catching purple bloom, whose petals bend all the way back. It's bright yellow center and a long white sticky 'rod' are perfect for meeting up with some amorous bees. ewww!

Any way speaking of eggplants, they are actually doing great, my beautiful 'one' that I started from seed back in January is actually still alive, but scraggly and tired looking. But looks are'nt everything, as this guy has about 3 buds, that look as if they are finally going to set! The ones that I purchased from the store are doing great to, lots of blooms, I think, because I prune them quite regularly...
eggplant observation no. 1
eggplant's first blooms all dropped off. The heat could have been a factor, but I noticed that on all of the various varieties, the very first blooms all fell off.
eggplant observation no. 2
Pruning nearly all the 'suckers', produces a plethora of blooms. I have found that the remaining two or three suckers produce blossom buds within days of pruning.

scraggly eggplant and salad greens

I have to add, the best looking plants, are the ones I have grown from seed. I planted several Lemon Yellow Cucumber, which resemble yellow and white striped softballs. Anyway, I put them in a 12" deep pot about two weeks ago, and they have just taken off! I am so happy, as my first cucumber vines died during that awful period of time known as hardening off. The vines are long, and the leaves are getting bigger and greener each day.

cucumber observation no. 1

There are three major vines, that started out as three seperate plants. Two of the vines seem to produce male blossoms entirely. The third vine, which is double the girth than the other two, produces mainly female blossoms. So the fruit bearing vine is quite meaty, you can't beat that sort of engineering!
cucumber observation no. 2
Lemon Yellow Cucumber is an extremely rewarding vegetable to grow. The growth rate is phenomenal! everyday the fruits are considerably bigger than the day before, and the vines and tendrils are so pretty!

right side represents two days worth of growth!

the mystery squash of my last entry has turned out to be a zuchinni. oh yay! I like zuchinni a lot more than squash. speaking of sexy plants... wow

There are probably 20 little zukes growing on two different vines right now. This is so exciting! This is also an extremly rewarding plant as far as visible
growth goes...

The yellow pear tomatoes are growing like mad! There are tons of flowers and all of them have pretty much turned into fruit. I am fighting a little bit of the early blight, but other than that everything is coming along swimmingly!

first blooms

early fruit

fruit as of one week ago

yellow pear tomato observation no. 1
As far as pruning goes I've had several different plants to experiment on. I've read that the accepted method of pruning involves removing the suckers. I have found that exactly the opposite of this works wonders. I have left maybe 5 to 7 of the longer branches on the plant in an effort to create some sort of 'shade'. Otherwise I remove most of the longer branches, and the suckers almost always produce flowers. These plant parts are producing flowers in adddition to clusters of flowers that emerge from the stem. I'm not one to argue with years of horticulture study, but the proof is in the pudding! I have lots of tomatoes, and flowers due to this method of pruning. Without tooting my horn any louder, I must add, this particular tomato is known for producing massive quanities of fruit, so... toot toot!
We'll see if the roma's fare as well byt his method.
yellow pear tomato observation no. 2
This is probably going to ellicit a thunderous "duh" from many of you out there, but remember for me, this is quite a learning experience that I am probably a little too excited about...Any who, initially I potted all of my teeny straggly seedlings up in 2lb coffee cans, and they took off in size. Concerned with the cans getting too hot, I planted some of the more healthy ones up in 10 inch deep containers. The new containers were not that much bigger than the coffee cans, but boy, did the plants really take off. I am not planning on upgrading there containers any more, as by keeping them slightly root bound (insert chorus of duh's here) they really are producing much more fruit!

There are lots more goings on outside on the ledge, most notably, the moon and stars melon made a teeny little melon, that I accidently broke off, oops, it's okay, there's lots more buds on it.
The foliage on this one is really neat, it's green with yellow speckles, just like the rind on the melon (eventually) is! Smart Nature...I'll have a picture soon
All of my other little late seedlings are, are you ready for this, going into the ground today! I am moving! Into a house! With a backyard!!!!!! and A pear tree! I am still going to do mostly containers though, I am not one for breaking my back tilling the soil and all that, so I am going over to my house today to plant:

okra

sugar baby watermelons

sunflowers

roma tomatoes (for sauce)

I am very excited, I didn't go looking for another place because I was sick of the challenges of gardening on a third floor ledge, I really like it up here, I love the learning curve involved. I went looking for purely financial reasons, and for once someone smiled on me, because the place is affordable, nice neghboorhood, a BACKYARD with a pear tree!!!, and really the best part, a dishwasher! yay! I will probably never use it though, due largely in part to gardening and growing, I have become much, much more aware of everything. How much water I use, where my various wastes go, it really has made me a much more concerned,aware, and thoughtful person. Everyone should should experience this joy. Three cheers for Gardening! Three cheers for summer!