This weekend we went home for my brother’s high school graduation. It was a whirlwind trip involving 14 hours of driving for 24 hours of visiting, but it was fun and something we could and needed to do. When we got back home Monday morning I noticed something awesome: the garden had bloomed over the weekend! We went from medium sized – not quite ready to eat – to huge spinach, lettuce large enough for salads, and massive zucchini and tomato blooms.
Our garden is working!
It’s been just under two months since the first Gardening in an Apartment post and about 55 days from our first sprouts. We harvested some of the spinach and lettuce and made tacos one night and salads two days later. I love how these types of plants replenish themselves if you don’t cut all the leaves off. I wont even go into how the spinach plant is like an income stream; for your tummy. 
In a few more weeks we’ll have tons of zucchini and tomatoes, plus all the spinach and lettuce we have now. The broccoli and beans are getting bigger too, but they are still quite a ways away from eating. We’ve got a little farm on our balcony.
It’s so exciting!
Related posts:
{ 12 comments… read them below or add one }
Cool!! I am so inspired. Last year was my very first garden: a tomato plant that made, I'm not joking, like 100s of Roma tomatoes. This year, we planted four tomato plants, all different sizes. Maybe next year I should do spinach, too; this looks fantastic!
Ugh…I'm so jealous! My stuff died (except for the grapefruit seeds I planted). I'm going to need a basic tutorial from you. Who'd have thought it'd be this hard to keep a plant alive?!! lol.
Haha, you planted 4 tomato plants after getting 100's last year from one? Brave girl… We planted 2 tomato plants from seed and they weren't growing fast enough so bought a pre-grown seedling. The big one you see in the bottom photo is the pre-grown one, the other two are still alive but only about 4 inches tall now. I am hoping they make it all season and are blooming when the other one is burned out.
Spinach is easy and so far is growing pretty fast. Each plant has about 5-6 leafs on it, so you need a lot of them to get enough for a meal.
I've never planted grapefruit seeds, did you just take them from a fruit or buy the seeds? I did take an apple seed from one of the organic fruits we bought and plant it – and I think it's growing now, but it might just be a stray wild seed, I can't tell yet.
Sorry about your plants dying! I know I get really excited when I see stuff growing and alive, and very sad when it doesn't. I get emotional with my plants,
Awesome! I can't wait for some blooming, although i had to start my tomatoes again. They didn't survive a day outside.
Just found your blog and love it! PF is one of my focuses for my blog but I also post about life in general. Saw your little comment on geocashing. My hubby and I got in to that last year. Although we have not done much yet we really like it! Your garden looks awesome! I live in a condo and am not certain how much veggies I am going to attempt to grow this summer. I have been sidetracked with other projects. Anyway, thanks for the great blog!
Have you ever tried zuchini blossom quesadillas? Then you can really get your moneys worth! Your pretty pictures brought them to mind.
Hey Karen! Thanks and welcome to the site!
Yea, our apartment is really small and we are on the second floor so we had to grow everything in buckets. We got a bunch of free icing tubs from a the grocery store bakery and they have been working really well. I missed having land for a 'real' garden so we decided to try it on the deck. So far so good.
You can eat the flowers? I haven't tried that yet, I didn't realize they were edible/good.
Our flowers are just starting to fall off so I could try them. Interesting… I'll have to look into zucchini blossom recipes…
I'm really sorry to hear about the tomatoes. Are the other plants still doing well?
We just came back from visiting R's dad and he's got an awesome veggie garden set up. His plants are so much bigger than ours… I know how you feel about not wanting to wait for things to grow more. It's so exciting to see them maturing.
I love the pictures and the recipes! It's given me some inspiration. Also, thank you for the comments. I will definitely keep you posted on the great tomato experiement but I expect regular updates on your garden as well
Wow! That's a pretty impressive selection for a balcony garden. Congratulations on a great success. Have you seen my garden blog? I harvested my first radishes yesterday. So exciting! I too get emotional over my little "babies".
:0)
{ 1 trackback }