Urban Farmers - Take 2

So last year Rob and I began our newest adventure - planting the ultimate urban garden. We have an upper balcony, 7' x 25', and have never really known what to do with the space. We've tried hammocks and outdoor dining, ultimate sun tan lounge to almost making it an outdoor bocce ball court. Then in a stroke of genius we came up with a great idea - an urban garden. So we bought some raised beds online and started to plan.

We decided that last year would be our experimental year. We would try to grow EVERYTHING we wanted. So we went to Home Depot to buy our herbs, fruits & veggies as well as the most dirt I have ever seen in my life. Seriously!!! I mean it took about 5-6 40 lb. bags to fill up EACH box, and there were SEVEN boxes. Talk about earning activity points. So after cussing him out as we carried the 42 bags of soil up the 2 flights of stairs to our balcony, we began our cultivating. We planted the following: 7 kinds of peppers, 5 kinds of tomatoes, zucchini, squash, watermelon, cantaloupe, pumpkin, cucumber, broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, sweet potato, red onion, sweet onion, white onion, raspberries, blueberries, rhubarb, lettuce, okra, garlic, shallot AND corn.

OK so I absolutely understand - kinda ambitious, huh? Well again I said it was our experimental year. So out of all those goodies here's what we harvested - Roma tomatoes, tons of peppers, cucumbers and sweet potatoes out of our hiney holes. And we also learned several lessons - 1. in order to make anything substantial out of the tomatoes we needed to grow several plants of 1 kind, 2. the trouble to grow zucchini & squash IS NOT worth it, 3. blueberries do not grow in the south and 4. trying to grow corn on a patio is completely ludicrous. But all in all - we were extremely proud of what we had done, what we had learned and that we FINALLY came up with a great use of that space.

So here we are, a year wiser and a year older. Thank all that is

holy that we didn't have to bring any additional soil in, but we did have to start a bit earlier with planning and really think about what we wanted to do this year. We decided to trellis all of the vine plant (watermelon, cantaloupe, pumpkin, cucumbers and potatoes) an also pair back the quantity and variety of what we planted. We also agreed that we would plant some basil in between the tomatoes and cilantro between the peppers. So out of the 7 boxes and assorted pots, we use 6 for things that we had grown before and to use 1 for experimental veggies. Things that were added to the mix were: carrots, betts, snap peas, green beans and (he tried to talk me out of it) artichoke. Things that did not make the cut this year were: afore mentioned zucchini & squash as well as onion, garlic, shallot, broccoli, cauliflower, okra (neither of us really even like it) and of course CORN.

I will keep you posted as the season goes along and let you know how it all turns out. OH by the way, almost forgot. Today was WI and I'm down 2.6 more - I'll keep you in the loop on that as well. If you have any vegetable garden questions - let me know!