After a spring/summer where I failed to get anything started — started seeds inside too late, started seeds outside before the garden turned on the water after the winter (although the weather was definitely warm enough for maybe a month)… I have progress!
A native flower I grew from seed on my fire escape is blooming. It’s an aster — heartleaf aster (Symphyotrichum cordifolium), I think. There’s a taller woodier volunteer aster elsewhere. Nearby native violets have buds.
I planted strawberries last week. All but one are coming up now. The variety is “Honeoye”, apparently named after a small town in upstate New York. They’re cold-tolerant, developed at Cornell, so they should easily survive the winters here. I originally wanted to plant native strawberries (Fragaria virginiana), but the cultivated strawberries have much bigger berries.
Landrace fava beans are coming up. These are supposed to be more heat- and drought-tolerant than normal favas, but still be good for cooler weather. I’m hoping they’ll survive over the winter for an early spring harvest!
Horseradish is coming up. They (apparently) sprout readily from roots or even root chunks, so I just bought one from the grocery store. I intend to eat the leaves, not the roots. Horseradish is a perennial and vigorous, so hopefully it doesn’t mind the shade.
(Foreground and fuzzy) Oland brown beans. I read that these are both shade-tolerant and prefer cooler weather (perfect for fall/spring planting here) and I actually already had them! I had previously bought them from Baer’s Best Beans for eating. These are just starting to vine.
In the foreground are various green onions, many planted from grocery store green onion bottoms. In the back are clumps of arugula and kale (not mine, I think spread from the neighbor’s plot).
My plot is dry (soil doesn’t seem to retain moisture well, despite adding a fair amount of compost) and shady. The summers are fairly hot (90-95° regularly, although humid), and the winters fairly cold (usually gets down to ~10° F at least once).
I’ve had trouble starting seeds, so I’ve been trying to pick perennials to plant.
An impressive squash or cucumber from 2 or 3 plots down is climbing on the fence, on the tree, and now turning back from where it came.
