I set my garden up on an impulse, and I've already written a post about all the incorrect approaches I took. Perhaps not surprising - researching ideas before jumping headlong into them is a pretty solid approach (one that I often fail to follow - eg, my PhD). However, I thought I was heading into it fairly open-minded. Since I didn't plan anything, how could I have preconceived notions about what I would be dealing with? Turns out, I totally did.
1. Weeding. Seriously? I live on the fifth floor, and the balcony faces an alley that has zero vegetation. Where do the damn little things come from? And how can they grow in the soup that is currently my potting soil when my actual plants can't?
2. Mother Nature drowning my plants. I know, I know. One of the incorrect things I did for my garden was to set it up without a proper drainage system (other than the 2-3 little holes that are already in each of the containers). But I live in Boston - it usually doesn't have a monsoon season. I was much more concerned about me as a human either drowning or drying out my plants. Live and learn, people. Mother nature doesn't like you to have pre-conceived notions.
3. Picking garbage off my plants. A few weeks ago, I found a Pepsi can on top of my strawberries. I was quite surprised, but I figured someone had thrown it off the roof deck - although I cynically wondered if they had been aiming for my plants, since in terms of random acts, my plants do not occupy a significant percentage of space. But then three days ago I woke up to this:
I...have no words. Upon closer inspection (ie, when I gingerly picked it up between my fingernails and threw it in the trash), it appears to be the cut off sleeve of a men's undershirt. Questions abound: Did someone spontaneously cut their sleeves off while on the roof with a pair of scissors they happened to have? Given the cold and wet weather, this seems unlikely. But if so, what happened to the other sleeve? Did they only cut off one?
Also, what are the mysterious dark spots? They look suspiciously like dried blood. Am I throwing away evidence of a gruesome, as yet undiscovered murder that occurred only ten feet above my head? Seems like there would be more blood in that case.
OR - and this is my current acting theory - the former owner of the sleeve in fact suffers from extreme germophobia, so he carries a pair of scissors around in his pocket in case he has to cut off any area of possible contamination. He attended a roof party, and then the person standing next to him developed a spontaneous nosebleed and dripped on his shirt, the shirt-owner then immediately - for his own self-preservation - cut off the tainted sleeve and threw it off the roof, as far as he could. Which was about 3 feet. It has been windy, so maybe it blew back. Yep, that must be what happened.
(Also, for anybody out there who wants to hypothesize - given the wet weather, it seems most unlikely that the wind blew it up from the trash bins that are ~100 yards away and a good 40 feet below. Wet cloth is heavy, yo.)
4. Figuring out which herb leaves to cut and when. I honestly never gave this a thought. When I was a kid, I never helped my mother with her herb beds - she would just magically appear in the kitchen with fresh-cut stems. I just found this blog entry on Pinterest and realized that I had been pruning my plants almost exactly wrong. The large bottom leaves should be left as is (I snipped those bad boys off weeks ago), and I should've been cutting just below where the new leaves are unfurling.
I'm hoping my plants can still recover and then I can show them what I've learned during their almost-dead experience. If not, I'll head to the store and buy some more plants and let the first ones be remembered as a learning experience for the human. I promise to hum "Taps" before throwing them out.
1. Weeding. Seriously? I live on the fifth floor, and the balcony faces an alley that has zero vegetation. Where do the damn little things come from? And how can they grow in the soup that is currently my potting soil when my actual plants can't?
2. Mother Nature drowning my plants. I know, I know. One of the incorrect things I did for my garden was to set it up without a proper drainage system (other than the 2-3 little holes that are already in each of the containers). But I live in Boston - it usually doesn't have a monsoon season. I was much more concerned about me as a human either drowning or drying out my plants. Live and learn, people. Mother nature doesn't like you to have pre-conceived notions.
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| Mini mudslides. |
3. Picking garbage off my plants. A few weeks ago, I found a Pepsi can on top of my strawberries. I was quite surprised, but I figured someone had thrown it off the roof deck - although I cynically wondered if they had been aiming for my plants, since in terms of random acts, my plants do not occupy a significant percentage of space. But then three days ago I woke up to this:
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| A dismembered T shirt sleeve on a tomato plant. Now, there's not something you see every day. |
Also, what are the mysterious dark spots? They look suspiciously like dried blood. Am I throwing away evidence of a gruesome, as yet undiscovered murder that occurred only ten feet above my head? Seems like there would be more blood in that case.
OR - and this is my current acting theory - the former owner of the sleeve in fact suffers from extreme germophobia, so he carries a pair of scissors around in his pocket in case he has to cut off any area of possible contamination. He attended a roof party, and then the person standing next to him developed a spontaneous nosebleed and dripped on his shirt, the shirt-owner then immediately - for his own self-preservation - cut off the tainted sleeve and threw it off the roof, as far as he could. Which was about 3 feet. It has been windy, so maybe it blew back. Yep, that must be what happened.
(Also, for anybody out there who wants to hypothesize - given the wet weather, it seems most unlikely that the wind blew it up from the trash bins that are ~100 yards away and a good 40 feet below. Wet cloth is heavy, yo.)
4. Figuring out which herb leaves to cut and when. I honestly never gave this a thought. When I was a kid, I never helped my mother with her herb beds - she would just magically appear in the kitchen with fresh-cut stems. I just found this blog entry on Pinterest and realized that I had been pruning my plants almost exactly wrong. The large bottom leaves should be left as is (I snipped those bad boys off weeks ago), and I should've been cutting just below where the new leaves are unfurling.
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| These may end up being herb sacrifices at the garden altar within a few weeks. The jury is still out. Note how all the large leaves are gone from the sage and thyme. Oopsie. |
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