Some folks have pointed out that I’m long overdue for a blog post, and particularly for an update on my garden. I know this is true. Perhaps the reason I’ve been putting it off is that there’s little good news to share; very little excitement for all the time and effort we put in.
This isn’t the greatest picture (my camera wasn’t cooperating), but you can see part of the problem right here. The tomato plants are growing out of control – due to insufficient sunlight, I think, they’re growing taller and taller but producing no fruit. I also lost 2 plants to spider mites, but hopefully they’re gone now.
One of the plants does have a whole bunch of flowers, and one actual tomato, so I’m crossing my fingers to see if it ripens. It may be that, like last year, we’ll suddenly get fruit when the leaves fall from the trees, and let in more light, leaving us with a late crop that would be much better than nothing.
But ultimately, I’ve come to terms with the fact that our patio just isn’t light enough for tomatoes in the summer. It’s sad, even tragic. I’ll probably keep trying… but on a much less ambitious scale, with much lower expectations.
You’d expect that, if it’s too dark for tomatoes, we should have good luck with greens and root veggies. I’ve been trying to plant more of those, it’s true. But for the most part, anything I plant from seed ends up… well, smooshed. This happened to most of my kale, and all my chard and cilantro. It’ll come up, grow for a few days, then get flattened. I suspect foul play by the local wildlife.
It’s not all bad news though.
Our potatoes have stopped growing taller, and presumably are putting lots of energy into making big tubers. (I’m eager to find out, but want to give them as much growing time as possible before we dig them up.) Our herbs are doing nicely, too: we’ve got plenty of basil, chives, and oregano.
A couple of my experiments, the ones where I said “this will never work”, have actually turned out better than I hoped. I planted some Malabar spinach, a hot-weather spinach substitute, that’s growing slowly but steadily. I started it too late, after a false start with my first batch, but I’m hoping in a few weeks to have enough to eat.
And my scrappy little raspberry plants have actually produced some berries! I wasn’t sure it was even possible to grow raspberries in containers, but I got early fruit from one plant, and I’m hoping for a fall crop from several of them. I don’t expect ever to get more than a handful at a time, certainly not enough for jam or pie, but enough to snack on… good raspberries are hard to come by!
So, knowing what I know now, I’m starting to plan for the fall. I’ll add a bunch of kale (started indoors, probably in the next week), carrots, and maybe even a fall crop of peas. I’m even thinking of building a little cold frame to see if the winter light is any friendlier than the summer.
There has got to be a way to make container gardening work on my patio… I just need to keep trying until I find it.
4 Comments
I finally gave up on my deer-ravaged crops and pulled most of them up to plant fall vegetables (under a large canopy of deer netting). It was tough, because I knew the plants weren’t completely dead, but I also knew they weren’t going to yield anything. I wound up with 5 grape tomatoes and a mystery squash that it turned out I picked too soon. My herbs are doing fantastic. My basil leaves are prolific but tiny, and next year, I’m going to plant the thai basil as a decorative plant – the flowers are gorgeous.
It’s definitely hard to let things go. Let me know how the deer netting works for you… hopefully you’ll have some better luck!
Liam, that’s a good idea. I tried to find better container varieties this year (everything I’m growing has pretty small fruit) but I only made a half-hearted effort to find shade-friendly varieties. I’ll have to look harder. And growing from seed isn’t a problem if I’m starting them indoors.
Also, after I posted this, Nathan pointed out that we’ve got some flowers on our tomatillo plant, which I’d given up for lost. So maybe there’s hope after all.
Bummer about the tomatoes. Have you tried growing selectively based on breed? My experience with it is pretty limited, but I imagine there are probably some strains out there that might be a little more agreeable to the partial shade issue – might be something to keep in mind next year. Of course, then you’ll likely have to grow from seed yourself, which can be tough as you’ve noted.
Very cool about the raspberries though! I’m surprised they haven’t been snagged by birds or squirrels.