New Garden: Seattle

Seattle presents great challenges for veranda gardening. Especially in my particular case where I have a giant tree blocking a lot of sunlight in the mornings. Also, although the days last from 6:00am until 9:30pm during the summers here, it never really warms up and the light itself is not very bright. There is a lot of fog in the mornings, so mold is almost guaranteed. The lack of sun means a lot of popular vegetables will be unproductive. The cold means slower growth and later, shorter growing periods.

This is the view from the veranda. You can see the tree that is blocking my sun. Just a few meters over, there is a lot of sun, but that area gets mowed frequently so I can't use it.

Forgetting all that, I went out and bought some supplies and transplants.

I bought a nice, deep planter. On the right is a big bag of Miracle-Gro soil which claims to fertilize plants for 6 months. Inside the planter are three plants I've selected for this year's garden: Japanese Cucumber, Japanese Eggplant, and Red Bell Peppers.

The problem is that these plants need full sun, but I can't offer that to them. Worst case, they will meet their doom in a week or so. Best case, I hope they can produce a few fruits.

There were a lot of pots already here, but I wanted a long, deep one so that I could effectively use the space on the porch. I can't believe it cost $17 at Home Depot. How can a plastic planter be so expensive?

Seattle also has a slug problem. They seek out gardens and munch. I considered lettuce, but I've seen how much slugs like it, so I decided against it. In order to help prevent slugs, I used bricks to raise the planter off the ground. You can see it in the final picture.

Cucumbers need to grow upwards, but garden netting is extremely expensive here. One net was going for $15 a square yard. There is something really uncomfortable about paying that much for disposable materials.

I'm a bit proud of the cucumbers on the left. In lieu of paying an arm and a leg for garden netting, I built my own. The materials used are a thumbtack, twine, and staples. The thumbtack (not pictured) holds the twine to the wall. The twine is stapled to the pot, and each of those "steps" is a piece of twine stapled to the vertical twine. Home-made and probably costing less than a penny.

Things are started!

Garden Round Up: Tokyo

Vegetable gardens, when productive, can be extremely productive. Some people are so overflowing with green peppers and squash and zucchinis that they can't give them away fast enough. When they are non-productive, you'll sit there nursing your one and only vegetable only to have it stop growing at half size and fall off the plant before you ever had a chance to eat it.

This year I had a lot of success with strawberries, potatoes, and tomatoes. On the other end of the spectrum, my green peppers and watermelon were merely decorative. I also had a few unexpected plants show up, like the new avocado tree. If I needed to survive on only my plants, I would not have made it.

However, I learned a few things.

• The pepper prefers to be closer to the veranda wall where there is more morning sun. Although the afternoon sun is longer, it is dimmer and less direct than the morning sun.
• I need to teach people taking care of my tomatoes *how* to remove the "waki me". I had a very productive year, but because one branch grew out of the side, I spent a lot of time trying to find ways to prop it up. I should have been spending that time eating more tomatoes.
• Watermelons need to be started earlier. If left to their own devices, they will sprout a month too late and won't reach maturity in time to harvest. Also, they probably need better soil and more room to grow.
• Strawberry plants die. I didn't think about this until just this summer when all the plants that bore fruit this spring dried up and died. The one that didn't produce any fruits at all is thriving and is currently sending out runners. I'll catch these and start again next year. I may try a different pot and retire the one I'm using now.
• Potatoes need more time. I probably harvested them too early. They were small, but they were tasty! Next year I'll wait a little longer before pulling them up.

The garden in Japan is still producing tomatoes and everyone over there is enjoying them. I had a couple before I left and thought they were a bit tough and sour. I bet if I waited just a couple days longer they would have tasted much better.

That's it for this year. I'll be heading back in December, so the next time I write about it, I'll be deciding what to plant in the winter. I'm thinking of a few things, but it'll take a little more research to do it right. More than anything else, I've found that planning and research leads to better results than seat-of-the-pants gardening. Planting is fun, but harvesting is better.

On the road again

So where was I? Oh yes, I was about as far as you can get from Tokyo in 8 and a half hours. That's right, the lovely, rainy city of Seattle. Nothing like going from the brutal heat of Tokyo to the cool fog of Seattle, I'll tell you.

What about my garden? Well, if this were any old trip I'd just let someone else handle the watering and care until I got back, but this time around I'm going to be gone until mid-December. I don't think anyone is going to take care of it that long.

Since there aren't any new plants or seeds planted, I've decided to let the garden go for now. There just isn't any way to adequately care for it while I am over here. Also, that means that I won't be writing blogs about it.

So what to do until December? That's the question, isn't it?

How about do some short-term gardening here? Seattle has a different set of gardening challenges than Tokyo. It is cooler, the days are significantly longer in the summer and shorter in the winter, the amount of rain can cause root damage and rot. But what the heck. I'll give it a shot.

This Sunday I will head on over to the Home Depot near my house and pick up some gardening supplies. I need to figure out what I need and what I can grow effectively.

Avocado: An interesting surprise

What really gets me about avocados is how fast they grow once they start. You can plant them or stick them in water and they do nothing for a long time. Sometimes they even start getting moldy and you consider throwing them out. Then one day it sprouts. And the next day it's grown an inch. In a week, you've got yourself a little tree.

That's what happened this morning in the veranda garden with a seed that I had all but forgotten.

Last January or so I took my son out to the garden to plant an avocado. It would be his own little seed and, eventually, tree. Sure we watered it, because it was planted with the bougainvillea so it got whatever water was left over. But for months nothing happened.

Then while I was moving some plants around to protect them from the wind this morning, I noticed a little stem sticking up from the soil. It's a new avocado tree!

If I don't transplant it, I'm sure it will kill the other plant and the shallow pot may not be the right thing for it.

I'm busy this weekend, but maybe next weekend I'll pick out a nice pot for it.

Tomato: Leaf malady

I'm not sure whether to water the tomato or if I'm watering it too much. The leaves are all droopy and it is looking listless. The outside temperature is 25°C and humidity is through the roof. Tomatoes like warm, dry temperatures, so this humidity may be pretty uncomfortable for it.

But the problem I'm most worried about is a white powder on the leaves. It looks like a fungus, but I can't find anything relevant online about it.

If anyone has any idea what the problem is and what the solution should be, please leave a comment.

Green peppers: First pepper of the year

The green pepper plant has finally produced its first pepper. Unfortunately it looks a bit misshapen and probably will be the last pepper this plant ever makes.

This plant has been around more than a year now. It has survived the last winter. It has survived multiple aphid and fruit fly infestations. It probably won't survive much longer, though.

After this season, I'm planning on pulling it out and using the planter for something else. I haven't decide what yet, but the lack of production with this pepper has been disappointing.

Tomato: Replacing the stake

The tomato plant has gone through extensive growth in the last few weeks. The original stake it was tied to has become just a bit too short for it.

To remedy this, I went to the home center and bought a brand new stake. It's taller than I am, so I don't expect any problems with size for the time being.

By the way, this is what I look like at 6:30 in the morning.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, the tomato has branched, so replacing the stake is a two-pronged approach (I'm killing me with these puns). Here is the tomato before the stake replacement.

Here, you can see how the tomato branches to the left. There is a second stake to hold up the branch on the left. Actually, the branch on the left is the main branch! The branch that grows straight upwards grew out of a bud (わき芽). As I mentioned before, this is bad for the fruits because it draws nutrients away from the fruits and towards leaf growth.

At this point, though, removing the branch would cause a lot more trouble for the plant because it has given almost half of its energy growing that side. It is very large and has a couple sets of flowers. However, it is a subordinate branch, so I don't want to treat it like the primary branch.

I made two changes to the staking. The first is the primary stake. As you can see in the picture, it is much thicker and taller. This should help with strong winds as well as for future upwards growth.

The other change was to move the primary branch to the main stake. This is a bit difficult because the original staking had trained the primary branch to grow sideways. However, a bit of creative tying coaxed it into place. I also posted the smaller stake diagonally to support the branch.

Some leaves were removed in the process and mulched. The overall look is a bit cleaner and the tomatoes are now visible along the main branch. I'll be watching the side branch to make sure it has enough support since it is no longer held straight up and is only supported by one small stake.