Balcony garden at night!

Half of my balcony garden at night :-). I love to seat here just to enjoy the night weather!

Aerogarden. 1 month update

The plants are growing very fast. Some faster than other. I cheated a bit by putting the cherry tomato seed into the curly parsley pot. I don't use parsley so I don't mind replace it. The tomato and basils are growing like crazy. I have to cut them almost everyday.

I trimmed the tomato a lot to keep it short while waiting for other plants to catch up :-)

Aerogarden after one week

After a week, all of the plants germinated. The basil germinated after two days.

I am very happy with the result since all of them germinated earlier than expected. They grow really fast that I can noted. I left house to work and came back to see them touched the doom :-)

I hope this garden will give me clean foods with less work than my garden on the balcony. I am tired of dealing with mildew and bug. I leave by the coast so my plants keep getting mildew, but I still love to have outdoor garden even they don't give me very high yield.

Aerogarden Extra Led - update

After two days, the Thai Basil and Genovese Basil germinated :-)

AeroGarden EXTRA LED Indoor Garden

I always want to try the hydroponic system but they are expensive until last week, Amazon had a deal on the Aero Garden Extra Led indoor Garden. The system looks nice enough and has really good review so I wasn't hesitate to order. Amazon shipped it fast so I got it delivered today.  I was so excited to get it to work. It was a very easy set up. Just take me about 10 minutes.

I will update the process of growing. It will be amazing to pick fresh vegetables right from the kitchen counter :-)

Scarlet Runner Bean Harvesting!

It's me in my Balcony Garden!

Baby Sugar Icebox Water Melon on my Balcony Garden!

I got a pack of four Baby Sugar Icebox Water Melon at Home Depot for just $2.90. It was the first time I grow water melon so I didn't know how big the container I should use. I grow them all in the City Picker Selfwatering Planter. They all all growing strong so I think the container is big enough. I used Dr. Earth Organic soil - the most expensive soil I ever bought, for this water melon. The soil is very good. It kept the moist and feel natural.

I discarded all of the first several flowers to keep the plant save its energy for growing stronger root. I hand pollinated them when I can. I saw some bees around so I let the beed do their job. I don't want so many fruits at once time :-).

 This baby is growing so fast. About 12 days, it is now about a big grapefruit size. Can't wait to taste them.

Balcony Garden July Update!

Everything is doing fantastic except some mildew on the tomato keep coming back. I just harvested the grape. Tomato is giving me fruit every week. I never have to buy tomato at the store anymore. The scarlet emperor running beans are climping up to the canopy. Japanese cucumber is ready to be eaten. Blackberry is flowering. Watermelon is having a lot of small fruit.

Beefsteak Tomato!

It's an exciting day!

Yellow Mushroom in Terrarium!

Slowly but surely, those yellow mushroom invaded my terrarium. I think it was on the soil waiting for the right condition to grow. They are harmless yet beauty so I keep them in there as long as they last :-)

Flame seedless grape!

Grapes are ripen! It flowered on May and now they are ready to be harvested. I didn't have experience this time so I didn't pinched out some grape. I learned that by pinched and thinned some fruit out, it help the rest bigger. Despite the small size, they are very sweet :-)

Ice box baby sugar water melon!

I picked up this Ice box baby sugar water melon last month at Home Depot nursery. They are growing fast and now started flowering. Each plants has several male and female flowers. I pinched off the first flowers. When they had flowers again for second time, I hand pollinated them early in the morning.

I didn't see much bee up here so hand pollinated is a key to have fruit.

Kishu Mandarine!

The local nursery just had this lovely Kishu Mandarine in stock. I wanted it so badly because it was very hard to find but it was a kind of pricy so I had to go with the cheapest option means bought the younger plant. I don't know when it will have fruit but small plant mean I can keep it indoor. The information said it will bloom in Spring. Keep finger crossed.

I found a lovely Made in Vietnam pot at Ross and potted the plant with organic soil and Citrus slow release fertilize. It's the first time I grow citrus indoor so let's wait and see :-)

Japanese cucumber!

The Japanese cucumber I picked up at the nursery last month is now blooming. When I first picked it up, it was about a feet tall and had some flowers. I pinched off all of the flowers so the plant could save its energy to develop the root system. This is very important thing I just learned after one of my tomato didn't grow very well when I left all the first flowers and fruits on the plant as I got it from the nursery.

This is female flower. I couldn't find the male flower to hand pollinate it so I don't know if it will become fruit.

Harvesting update - 07/07/2014

A 12" tasty juicy cucumber ;-)

Harvesting and flowers!

This was the first time I ever tasted a beefsteak tomato. Since I never saw it at the store, I tried to grow one. After four month, this was the first one ripen. It tasted very good, thick juicy meat.

 My fava bean got burned by the heat wave last week and here were some beans left to harvest. They taste very sweet. I was able to eat them all raw.

The sunflower was seeded by bird. It grew very fast. This one was about 3 weeks. I will save them for seed to feed the birds back :-).

 I thought this dwarf pomegranate plant couldn't survice because it was so tiny week and got pest all over it. But this summer, it gave me so many flowers on it's 12 inches tall body.

 The first strawberry. Very big, tasty and good looking.

 These also first harvest bluberry and alpine strawberry. They tasted so good!

 My olallie blackberry gave me just three fruits for the first time. I hope it will survice this summer.

Saving Private...Blueberry!

My bountiful blueberry wasn't doing good in the summer heat. Its leaves were getting dry, also the fruit. The fruit tasted really tart even they looked ripe. I didn't know what to do. I used specific soil for blueberry and add fertilize every month. I ordered the PH soil test and tested it today. The soil wasn't acidic enough but it shouldn't be the reason for dry leaves. Some people on the gardening forum had the same problem with their blueberry in California so I guess the "full sun" rule din't apply here. They said they moved their blueberry to a shading area and it worked great! I gave it a try.

 Leaves were drying.

 Also the fruits.

 I got new soil and re pot the plant to make sure I did everything right at one. Because of that, I found out the root ball wasn't develop much after fourth months. It still has the same shape of the nursery pot when I first got it. I think I made a mistake of not loosing the root ball from beginning. So I gave it a good shake, loosed up the root and re pot it with new soil that had the right PH level.

I hope it will work and my blueberry will stay with me.