Spider mites again :(

Spider mites have again proved the downfall of a promising AeroGarden. This time it was my cherry tomatoes. I did not get a single fruit off of them. They look like crap so I'm chucking em in the compost pile. I was unable to grow a single tomato this year by any method.

I suspect it's still getting too hot in my little side room, although I tried to keep the ceiling fan running. Maybe my squalid apartment is just infested, which wouldn't surprize me, as it's home to almost every other kind of bug.

I do have a few healthy plants like the pobablano and the squash... just not a lot of fruit action. One of my lemons is turning ripe though, after several months. I should get a half dozen in all.

Status at summer solstice

I'm sorry I have been derelict in reporting on all my various ecogronomic projects. Here is an attempt to bring things current. Overall, I have had mixed success. The sum output has been much less than I expected, but there are some positive developments.

I have so many things going on I don't know where to begin. At last count I had three dozen individual plants indoors alone. Plus an equivalent on my patio.

In general the AeroGardens have not produced as expected. I have been able to get seedlings pretty easily in most cases, but getting real plants with real fruits has been elusive. I'm sure a good deal of this was from my relentless moving plants around, trying them in bottles or outside, etc. Still, I was disappointed by some kits, like the Cherry Tomato. I have only got one big plant out of it. It's important to note that I did have that bowl outside. It also grew a giant zuccini, but it lost its blossoms too.

I was disappointed by a couple of the kits. My Aerogarden 3's Green Bean kit (out of three seed pods) produced two leggy plants that got so tall I moved them to an AeroGarden Classic. Also, the Baby Greens are gone, daddy, gone. They don't like to be above 78'F and I think my air conditioner may have dried them out. They ended up getting covered with some kind of little red plant mites.

So, the theme for the last couple of months has been disappointment, be it self-induced or not. To have four AeroGardens going and an empty salad bowl is a little discouraging, and I have spent around $50 on seed kits alone. My little cherry tomato plant looks like shit. It had some blooms but it lost them. I dumped out all the old water and started anew in an attempt to revive. Right now it is parked in a Classic AeroGarden with just the two leggy Green Bean AG3 refugees. My last remaining hops plant is hanging on, beginning to branch out, but it's still just a sad little diseased looking twig. The little coffee plant I got on eBay has some leaves but it is an unhealthy yellowy shade of green. These last two, parked outside.

My pride and joy is my little lemon tree. I think I got this thing started earlier than the rest. It has about eight fruits on it and they are larger than limes. Also, one of my several poblano pepper plants is looking like something after I moved it to get a lot more shade during the day. It has been so hard getting stuff going on that baking (115'F) patio, but the lemon tree is full sun all day. The key is, use oversized pots and get stuff established early in the season.

My aquaponics experiment is going, though I downsized it. Now it's basically a styrofoam cooler with a raft on top holding some AeroGarden refugees. The basil is alive, after all the abuse it's been through in the past six months (I planted it around Christmas).

I also have a purple basil in the window in a vase, and a cutting from it is finally establishing itself in a pot on the patio.

Dis-Mayed

Suddenly it's June 1... May was filled with joyous events but before you know it, it's gone.

How are things im mein garten? Alles klar, Herr Kommissar? Well not really. It has been getting into the 100'F's on my porch, and the heat is really getting to my less-established plants.

My hops plant was not doing so good after I pruned it, attempting to get another one going with the pruning. It is leggy and some of the leaves at the bottom are yellow and covered in spider mites. I brought it inside under a grow light in case the heat was a factor, but I really have no idea what is going on or how to fix it. I might have been keeping it too moist. There is some brown on the tips of some of the leaves, which is usually a sign of dryness.

Some things are positively thriving outside. My lemon tree is going bananas, so to speak. It even has a few new blossoms! The little lemons are about half the size of ping pong balls, larger than marbles. They all look healthy. I have been watering the crap out of it. Ditto for my strawberry plant: it doesn't have any flowers or fruits, but is putting out a runner.

I have some new additions to the fambly. I started another AeroGarden 3 with green beans. These sprouted in just two days---not the six to eight days the label indicates. I'm taking that as a good sign. I would really like to get some protein into the urban homesteading equation, hence the legumes. The only other way I know to do this is grow mushrooms or raise chickens or something. I will be on the lookout in case a chicken falls off the 10:50 a.m. chicken truck that passes my house.

I have been having mixed results with my AeroGarden Classics. One of them has evolved into a sophisticated, successful, and diversified mini-garden with a magnificent cherry tomato tree (it looks more bonsai than bush), parsley (planted at Christmas (!), it's been thriving since I removed the basil), a couple of newly planted snow peas (no sprouts after two days), and a very precocious zuccini I grew from my own Burpee seed. The first zuccini I transplanted outside in a little pot got flowers but then it got burnt by the sun or perhaps excessive nutrients from the fish water. However, my newer zuccini plantings have been really taking off. I have been able to get them started quite easily just by placing them in some foam at the top of a water-filled bottle. It's that easy. I have a couple of plants floating on top of the fish vat outside, but the one in the AeroGarden is outgrowing all the others.

Gorgeous weather

I really don't have the words to describe how lovely is an early spring day in yonder Carolines, nor will a crummy cellphone picture do it justice.

Fortunately I was able to get outside and enjoy it, picking up gardening supplies at yonder Hardware Hut and tackling a couple of repotting/planting projects. Thanks to Red Icculus I got some Hydroton clay pellets and used these as a top dressing for my wild strawberry and lemon tree, which moved into larger dwellings today. The clay pellets look very cool; if they provide a bit of moisture management insurance all the better.

This stuff is getting expensive though. I just dropped $41 on pots and implements.