Container Gardening Part 2

I said I'd post some more photos of how our "container gardening" was going this summer, and I forgot. Truthfully, it didn't go well at all. The extreme heat our poor plants experienced on our second floor apartment balcony just did many of them in. The few that survived didn't start to thrive until later in the season. At least our pepper plant is still producing baby peppers.


I want to express my wholehearted thanks to my friend Michele A. for babysitting our carrots and beets while we've been in and out of town helping  Mom. We harvested what we could of these crops, and while our attempts at organic container gardening weren't successful by any means, we can at least say we tried. Next year, we hope we can obtain some actual land to plant seeds in. Keep your fingers crossed!

The green tops of the beets and carrots look quite healthy.

This is all we harvested, but we learned a lot.

Space--carrots and beets need more space to grow larger!

November will bring a lot of challenges--The Nanowrimo Challenge (write a novel in a month) for one of them. Stay tuned for updates and how you can enjoy a free story this holiday season. Don't forget to check out my newly updated web page at http://www.cynthianna.com/ too.

All you green thumbs out there--please tell us in the comments section below what we could have done differently to grow better crops in our containers. Thanks.

Container Gardening

I've been meaning to post another blog about what all we've been doing this summer to go "green", but life crises got in the way (again). All is not lost, however. We plan on attending a seminar on how to use solar power in the city this coming week, and a couple of weeks ago we attended the first annual St. Louis Sustainable Backyard Garden Tour. Organic veggies, bees, chickens and goats--all growing in peoples' backyards in an urban setting. It proves that it is possible to get in touch with nature and get away from processed food, one chicken at a time... But first, here are some photos of our own "sustainable garden" growing in containers on our very hot and very narrow balcony:

The tomato plant got off to a good start and has produced two Roma tomatoes already.

The pepper plant really took off after we planted some spaghetti squash next to it. Perhaps she was lonely?

The very first "hula hoop" pepper!

Our containers are not pretty or even store bought, but found plastic tubs, buckets and old styrofoam boxes.

Here's a happy hen we met on the sustainable tour in Webster Groves. Even though the chicken house was just mere yards away from a train track, the noise of the engines blaring past every few minutes didn't phase her and her feathered friends one bit.

These three gals were very happy eating blueberries from their master's hand... and lived in the city proper. We learned a lot about egg production and how entertaining raising poultry can be.

Having your own beehive would keep you in honey, but all those swarming bees make me a bit nervous.

Aquatic organic agriculture: crayfish being raised in a rain-fed backyard pond. Both pretty and productive.