My urban dwelling may not have a yard, but we do have a deck that is bigger than my last downtown apartment. Years ago I added four planter boxes made from industrial crates and a few pots hear and there. This year things are doing super well…
Although things did get off to a rocky start. Last year it was very hot and I was out of town a bit so the plants all dried up. The massive amount of snow that we got finished everything else off. I gave up until I saw that the Sage that I planted so many years ago was coming back. Also I could see the emergence of 3rd year Asparagus that gave me hope that this year would be better. With the help of my new IOT garden monitoring system and some of those mini dirt disks, I got some plant starters going. They got big enough to plant in the boxes and take root. I added some other starters as well from a local nursery. I also trimmed down the end of a Celery bunch that I used to make stew with and put that in the ground just to see what happened.
Well, stuff was growing, but not that very big and I was not sure about the sunlight or water. While talking to my partner about this she asked “well what kind of fertiliser did you use?” I just kinda mixed up the dirt and buried all the dead plant parts. You know, circle of life and all that… So that was a failure on my part and we went to the store to look at plant food. My partner is very pro Organic and I support that as much as I can so I got some organic plant food for eatable plants. You see most of what I grow is for food stuffs because I love to cook. I got this stuff called All Purpose Water Soluble Plant Food by Jobe’s Organics and wow did this stuff work. At first I just mixed some into my watering can and the plants just took off. Later I would just sprinkle some near the plant roots about once a week just before watering them. My plants have grown more in the past three weeks than they have all summer.
Now my Lettuce Leaf Basil has leaves the size of a lettuce leaf and my lettuce has leaves big enough to cover a sandwich. My cherry tomato plant is overflowing with tomatoes and peeks well over my neighbors fence. There are so many flowers of all colors, but most amazing is that the Celery is growing new sticks. So yeah I super engoy being able to relax on our deck with all these green things. When I make my sandwich for lunch, I just pluck some fresh leaves right off from the Lettuce patch. This morning I made eggs with tomatoes and basil wile the crows stopped by to say hi.
