Sharpredpencil’s Weblog

I did some reading today. I think perhaps my tomatoes aren’t getting the proper pollination since we have a screened-in balcony. I have a teeny bit of hope some tomatoes might still pop up, but I’m going to try the hand pollinating thing.

I think my aurora pepper is doing splendidly, though. A flower fell off and in it’s place is the start of a tiny pepper! I love this plant.

I ordered a new book from Amazon tonight: Vegetable Gardening in Florida by James M. Stephens. I think it will prove very useful in determining when I should plant my veggies. I don’t think it has too much in terms of container gardening, but the timetable issue is the one I’m most concerned about at the moment.

I’ll keep you posted on my painting skills!

At least for me, anyway.

The first pictures are of my Illinois garden just before I loaded it all up in the car for our expedition. See the pretty yellow flowers on the tomatoes? Those popped up just before we left, and I snapped the picture for fear of them disappearing because of the stress of the trip. Oh, wait. I just realized I didn’t include the pole beans in the picture. Oh well. They were there.

The next pictures show my Florida garden. I have my three tomatoes, my pole beans (with the slightly unsturdy pole bean supports), my aurora pepper, and then my bell pepper (which is doing well post Peanut’s feast). The small parsley pot is hidden on the far side of the balcony. My cabbage is still thriving in the opposite shaded corner. I still don’t know when a head of cabbage will appear, or if I’m supposed to harvest the leaves, or what, but I’m just going with it.

I still don’t have any tomatoes, although the plants themselves grow taller each day. I don’t know if it’s the heat, or the stress of the move, or a combination, but most of the flowers still eventually wither away. I have a few recent blossoms that look strong, so I’m crossing my fingers, but I think I’ll have better luck with the tomatoes I plant in August.

Finally, my aurora pepper looks great. I have these gorgeous purple flower blossoms. The picture doesn’t show them very well; most are just under the top leaves. The way the plant looks now makes me want two or three more plants. That would be far too many peppers for my liking, but the plant is so pretty!

On another note, we did pass a nursery coming home from a church we checked out in another town (the church was great, btw). I will definitely stop by there soon. I saw signs for citrus trees, herbs, and other things. I think I might add a cool-looking tropical plant to my garden. I have no idea what it’s called, but I see people with containers of these on their balconies. The leaves are all multi-colored and they look really, really cool. My gardening obsession is spilling over into nonvegetable things already!

To complete our balcony, we plan to buy some patio chairs so we can sit out there and enjoy the garden. Peanut loves hanging out on the balcony, too, so we’ll be quite the happy family watching our vegetables grow!