CityDiggity
A green space for urban gardenersArchive for sun-sugar hybrid
The survivors: three heirloom tomato plants still standing
While reading accounts of bountiful harvests by garden bloggers around the world, I’ve waited patiently, hoping my day would come.
Well, despite the setbacks I’ve faced this year in the cultivation of my small-space balcony garden, I can at last proclaim: I have tomatoes!
Not as many as I anticipated when I began this year’s gardening adventure, but the fact that I was overambitious has perhaps paid off, since half of too much turns out to be quite enough. Wild cherry, rosalita and isis candy heirlooms endured Read the rest of this entry »
Tomato rites of passage: hoops and hoopla as first fruit emerge
The proudest moment for an heirloom tomato parent arrived in recent days with much pomp and circumstance: my plants had graduated to the point where it was time for the ceremonial “presentation of the hoops.”
Hoops being those wire support systems that, when inverted, look like the framework beneath all those crinoline skirts of a century ago.
I’ve learned the hard way that if you wait too long to slip them over the tender stems of your tomatoes you can damage the plants trying to squeeze them in later.
If you haven’t been following the evolution of my Read the rest of this entry »
Lots of places where gardens could take root in cities
Blue wildflowers suggest there's a garden longing to bloom on this undeveloped site.
There’s a conspicuously vacant lot on my block.
Its original low-rise buildings were razed some time ago in anticipation of the coming of a condominium tower. But that work ground to a halt a few months back — perhaps another casualty of these tough economic times.
Despite the building boom of the last 10 years, it’s not the only undeveloped plot of land I spied while driving through my downtown neighborhood. There was even one that seemed to be spontaneously becoming a garden, with pretty blue flowers popping up on its perimeter.
I immediately switched into “what if” mode: What if Read the rest of this entry »
It’s showtime: pellets and seeds today, tomatoes tomorrow
Peat pellets expand in minutes, so it's not quite like watching paint dry. (See slideshow below.)
They don’t look like much right now, but the small peat purses I’ve tucked safely away in a mini-greenhouse will, with a few seeds and a little luck, produce a bounty of heirloom tomatoes by mid-summer.
I finally chose four seed varieties to join my two stars (black plum and sun-sugar hybrid) in this year’s garden. Yes, I know I said I was only planting four or five heirlooms total, but I was so intrigued by my options that I decided to try and squeeze in an extra pot. So, drum roll please . . . Read the rest of this entry »
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