Blueberries are a very versatile plant. Some blueberry varieties can easily be grown in containers on a patio, balcony, fire escape, or sunny porch. Other blueberry varieties grow to be over 10 feet tall and make a great hedge row. Blueberries need acidic soil, sunlight, and well drained water. Use pine needles as mulch to keep the soil acidic and make sure you weed. Blueberries are high in anti oxidants and a great plant to grow when you have kids. Blueberries ripen in July and can start bearing fruit for you in the first year.
Cucumbers
Cucumbers are delicious right out of the garden. I find that it is a vegetable that a large number of people can agree on. I’ve planted many types of heirloom cucumbers, all distinctive in flavor and color.
Try a few different types for yourself. I’ve found that Medium sized varieties that begin bearing fruit around 55 days work best in an urban garden. Don’t forget to save seeds for next year. I love using cucumbers when they are in season daily. Cucumbers add a hydrating crunchiness to my salads.
Night Shade Plants
It's odd to think that the tomato and potato are cousins, both from the nightshade family. This makes sense when you look at the leaves of both plants, some types of tomatoes and potatoes even look alike. The heirloom tomato, Tiffen Mennonite, in the video's leaves are potato like, but the two plants couldn't be more different. To properly grow tomatoes they need to have a good amount of water, be supported, and get plenty of sun. Check out my Vertical Gardening series for great info on supporting plants. The plants in my garden get about eight hours of sunlight per day. Soil conditions should be rich and with a PH around 6-6.8. You can bury your seedlings way down, or even on their sides, because new roots will grow out of the stems. Keep away slugs, by putting broken egg shells around the plants, and bugs with lady bugs, or diatomaceous earth. It takes a while for the tomatoes to vine ripen, but when they do, provided you use tasty heirloom seeds to start, you'll have an incredible treat in only 100 days. Potatoes are quite different. Potato plants need to be mounded with soil. You can also use hay or mulch and make sure no light can get thru to any part of the plant. The seed potato should have at least 2 eyes on them and it needs to be planted deeply. The tubers that form above the seed are the potatoes. As they grow, the potatoes need to be mounded with straw. The video gives an over view of how I grow mine, also check out my video 'Planting Potato'. Please watch and don't forget to sign up for my newsletter.
My Almost Record Tomato
My system of urban gardening really works. This video is the proof. When talking about tomatoes it is the taste that really matters, not size, well sometimes size matters. Anyway, "My Almost Record Tomato" had been on my radar for quite a few weeks, it became part of my daily ritual to check to see how big it got overnight. Finally the day came to harvest the tomato. I couldn't wait another moment. The cameras were there so I could share it all with you. The tomato was a Tiffen Mennonite from my own seed collection. I missed the mark by one ounce of being the 8th largest tomato grown in Massachusetts. This year hopefully, your results will match and even surpass mine. Check out the video and see for yourself. Size really does matter.
Climbing Roses
I was never a big fan of roses, but when I moved into my first house, My neighbor chipped in and planted roses on the exterior corner. The roses are a beautiful pink and are still there. We realized quickly that besides being beautiful it acts as a security barrio. Who wants to go thru huge thorn bushes to rob your house? From then on I started noticing all of the beautiful roses around the neighborhood. Our cousins Greg & Lauren, who live down the street from us have a beautiful rose bush that has what seems like millions of flowers through out the spring and summer. When I moved the house came with the fabulous rose bush that is features in the video. That inspired me to go Rose crazy and plant a whole wall of climbing roses along my lattice fence. Wait till you see the number of roses I collected!
City Orchard & Planting a Mini Orchard
I made these two videos for you so that you can share in the joy that I've had growing my own fruit trees. The previous house I lived in had a huge vacant lot next to it. The first thing my husband and I wanted to do was to plant trees. The lot was on a corner so we planted different types of maple trees that would provide a wonderful canopy and color in the fall. But my favorite trees that we planted there were the fruit trees. I planted a mini orchard using dwarf apple trees and plum trees which bore fruit every year I was there. It was great placing a bowl of home grown apples in my office for all to share. Because I live in the city, I use dwarf and semi dwarf fruit trees. Trees are a very important part of combating climate change. In the city the percentage of tree canopies are very low and have declined in major metropolitan areas since the 1970's. Many cities in America have initiatives underway to increase those canopies by planting trees. Trees add to your property value. Trees clean the air by filtering pollutants which is so important in the city. The best thing that you can do to be part of the solution is plant trees. So what are you waiting for? Watch my videos on my new mini orchard and how to plant fruit trees, even in a small yard, or on a patio. Don't forget to sign up for my newsletter.
Italian Kitchen Garden
Flowers and landscape plants are wonderful, but the thing I like most about gardening is growing stuff that I can eat. In this video series you will see me plant 4x4 raised beds with Italian herbs and heirloom tomatoes and peppers and other Italian veggies. I am using plants that are very far along in their growth, but you can start yours from seed right in the raised beds. If you live in cooler climates you should start your plants early from seed. I'm using soil rich in compost and cocoa shell mulch (my favorite). This is a great way to get started supplementing your family's food with organic home grown food. Please watch the video and then check out my pesto recipe. You too can make fresh Italian food all season long. Interestingly, enough my parsley and oregano planted in the videos provided fresh herbs all winter. Want to know how I did it? Check out my Winter Gardening video.
