Philly Urban Rooftop Garden + Orchard! 7a/b

[dizzy]

I mean I haven’t successfully grown them yet! LOL. Will put in this week hopefully. I’ve def seen people do it! Big big thing is getting the right varieties. I got Astia for zukes, Quick Snack and Miniature White and Pick-a-Bushel (might go in a 5gal grow bag) for cukes. My other squashes are going to go in 10 gal bags, I got varieties people said they grew in GS’s but I ran out of space. I got Minnesota Midget melon, Mini Love watermelon, Honey Bear acorn squash, Burpee’s Butterbush butternut squash, and Tivoli spaghetti squash.

Right now I have 6 total planted out and 1 in my apt that I might end up selling.
3 leaf towers: 1 is greens mostly brassicas, another is greens also but spinach/lettuce/herbs (i planted a bunch of red shiso lately can’t wait), and a strawberry tower
3 original towers: 1 is dwarf/microdwarf tomatoes with dwarf basil (i haven’t put the tomatoes in yet, waiting to transplant until this heat wave is over in a couple days), 1 original that has garlic (ugh, mostly died), carrots, broc/cabbage, and recently a bunch of bush beans- I’m thinking to move the beans to my rail planters tho. Other original tower is another hodgepodge- has smaller sized peppers, a native pollinator tier (stuff with smaller roots), beets and carrots.

My carrots and beets just have been super slow, idk. I’ve never been great at growing those even in the ground. Sometime I will figure that out, but probably not while it’s 90s now lol.

[Eme]

It will be fun to see where all those vines grow! You might want to try early moonbeam watermelon. I grew it only for the first time last year, but very, very short vine - like 4’ total - and the baseball sized yellow watermelon actually had good flavor. Unlike the other orange varieties that I think lacked watermelon flavor. I am growing it again this year.

[dizzy]

I looked at early moonbeam but people seemed more enthusiastic about mini love- more melons but slightly more compact vines (I think the early moonbeam might be bushy tho?). People even grow it in a greenstalk. I’ll consider it next year depending on how the Mini Love tastes tho, no more seed buying for me this year!

In other news I popped by the recycling center (which had run out of compost! crazy, that never happened before) and they had restocked a little. Got 3 buckets compost, 2 of manure and 1 of mulch, made up another bin of potting mix and planted my okra (dwarf Blondy) and a Socrates cuke (gonna try a variety to get as many cukes as possible, I freaking love them even tho I’m growing those other varieties as well. Had some leftover seed from years past and it did well)

Hoping tonight or tomorrow to make another bin of mix and fill up my 10 gal containers and get those squashes and melons in. I haven’t quite figured out placement but one thing I was thinking was to kind of use the screen door that’s propped open as a trellis. I also saw these things previously from Lowe’s that were cheap, an 18” wide A frame maybe I could put between a couple of the plants.

Oh also last excitement is my red shisho started coming up, I can’t wait for that. I’ve had a red shisho shrub in Japan it’s so tasty and refreshing. Good with sushi of course too.

[Eme]

I only had one early moonbeam and it just grew as a short vine, not a bush. It wasn’t in an optimal spot, so that might have impacted it. I have a lot more growing this year. I’m interested to hear how mini love does and tastes.

[dizzy]

Well I have goofed up fairly royally lol. So I had all my squashes and melons planted over again because I went away and then things died and then when i planted again I was sure of the order of which was which but then I goofed it. I didn’t know what was astia zuke or really anything. So I ended up putting what I thought was mini love and minnesota midget in a 2 tier greenstalk (running out of space) then realized they might be squashes whoooops. So rn there are those, then 1 other thing that looks like it is now a squash in a 10 gal bag. Then I dumped the others which I didn’t think sprout and now think I found the mini love coming up on the side of that bag. But I had already gone to a local micro nursery and picked up a PMR Delicious 51 (supposedly an early strain of Bender’s Surprise which is supposed to be awesome) and Sugar Baby. SIGH.

Also most of my cukes are meh but I got a free muncher cuke from someone (with 2 seedlings in it) so I threw that in a 10 gal, put another mystery cuke I had in a 5 gal, and then they are growing up a trash picked wooden trellis which is helping to shade my blueberries/huckleberry which have moved to my fomerly “shade” planter (now my “Acid” planter lol. the lingonberries are there too). Also the cuke guy gave me a yukari bekan pepper so yay for another Turkish pepper.

Somewhere in between this stuff I went to a place and got a different zuke that is supposedly a container friendly costata romanesco which hopefully will be a more flavorful choice than astia and of course way further along than planting seed again, a barbarella eggplant bc why not, a purple leaved sweet potato, and some pollinators.
ALSOOOO when I was at the micro nursery I couldn’t but help pick up 2 onion pots bc they each had like 20+ starts in it and was only $3 each and my greens all bolted, so I put those in the leaf greenstalks.

Anyway at this point pretty much everything is planted in AND I have finally mulched everything with straw. Now all I need to do is figure out how to jerry rig a hose to something that will pump the water up so I don’t have to make 10-20 trips a day across my apartment and up a half flight of stairs with watering cans

[dizzy]

Woooo there are a bunch of swallowtail caterpillars on my fennel plants. Glad to see my trap crops/pollinators are working!

[dizzy]

Whoops, crazy summer, forgot to update.

Finally figured out my squashes, unfortunately after my spaghetti grew a 6” round squash (it’s a round spaghetti squash) it and my zucchini a few feet away on a greenstalk succumed to squash vine borer. So mad! How did they get up to the roof? the 3 zucchini I got before it died were great though!

My butternut and acorn squash are still plugging along but not doing much.
I’ve got 2 good sized watermelons and a couple smaller ones plus canteloupes. Getting a few cukes finally- quick snacks and muncher so far. My chard has been liking all this rain it has really perked up again. I guess I need to plant fall stuff soon. Carrots/beets are like chillin but didn’t grow huge again.
Peppers are slooooooow whyyyyyy. No peppers yet. Basil’s doing well tho
Potatoes are still greening out but it’s occurred to me they might be starting like another crop? idk I gotta pull them but it keeps raining. Hopefully in the next day or two it’s supposed to be mid 90s again ugh

My shinseiki plum officially hit the dust. My comice I thought was sad too but it seemed to wake up and has lots of leaves now. Apples are mostly happy- the liberty died on the main stem but has another branch that I guess is the main one now- it’s above the graft, so I guess all good?
My plums are meh also- rosy gage is doing great, but the reine de mirabelle right next to it barely leafed anything and those shriveled up and turned brown (but not like crispy). Still green on a scratch tho. I need to see if it’s draining right, it’s hard to tell bc we’ve had both hot and rain, weather is schizo this summer.

Officially declared my barbillone and paradiso bronze figs dead…but accumulated nerucciolo d’elbe, white madiera #1, and portuguese long- the last 2 from Bass. The portuguese long he said is a new one and not on his site yet, he said it’s supposed to be a melony taste but not like LDA so idk! Maybe I was confused? It should fruit this year tho, we will find out. I’ve been enjoying breba this week from CLBC which were yummy. By far my best performing tree since last fall.

My strawberries are crazy, they have just been wanting to runner all summer which has been tricky in the greenstalk and not a lot of room. Plenty got crispy then I got more runners. It’s August 8, now some are starting to fruit again. What in the what.
I think the runner ones are mostly the Old North Sea, that guy said they go nuts.

Uh what else. None of my beans decided to grow beans. I planted some new varieties about a month ago we will see. I got onion starts super late but they are starting to bulb, or at least the ones at the top of the greenstalks and in the rail planters are, so that’s exciting. Just starting to get some tomatoes from my mystery plants (aka all of them, at least 10 micros and probably another 10-15 dwarfs rofl) looks like what I thought were 3 dwarf Saucy Marys were Al Kuffa’s, oh well. Nice little salad tomatoes, looking to be pretty prolific, a nice heritage selection and of course great in the heat. I got a Tasmanian chocolate too but was surprised how tiny it was, thought they were suppposed to be bigger? Only 2 micros fruited so far- Loi’s B Tiger and I think Jip/Janneke they were fine nothing special. I might have to rethink my strategy next year on the micros, potentially get rid of a tower or two and just do grow bags and get stuff tall. IDK

[Eme]

Great job on it all. My greenstalk has been working out. Strawberries and herbs have done great. They don’t get as big and full as in my raised beds, but I’m happy. Bush beans in there are fine, nothing special. I did throw a honeynut in there and it’s a bit of an anorexic vine but made one and the rest didn’t pollinate. That plant is temperamental and seems to need hand pollination. But, the squash is about half the size of the ones on an in ground plant. So, happy things can grow, but they just grow small with limited root space. I’m still curious to hear if you mature a watermelon big enough to eat. I planted a bunch of watermelons in 7-10g containers and on the whole they get sick faster and make tiny melons, so I don’t see how it could do in what is essentially 1/6 of a 7g?

[dizzy]

My melons are in containers not the greenstalks. I have them in 7 or 10gal bags since I ran out of room in the greenstalks and that was a good choice i think accidentally!
I have one sugar baby that’s like 8” at least and a mini love that’s like 6” at least and then some smaller ones. the PMR 51 is like 4” on the big one and there’s another tiny one forming that’s an inch or so

[dizzy]

Welp, end of summer here. Started getting a couple figs (ps I was travelling and picked up a couple from bass (Portuguese long, which he said was a green fig with reddish inside and melon taste - this ripened one but it was light colored inside, so idk) and White madiera #1 (probably not ripening any this year but who knows). Also got a good sized Nerucciolo d’Elba, Bakor, and Angelito from local growers. Ugh I can’t stop lol! NdE is definitely going to ripen on my hot deck this year but late maybe. Ton of figs on it with nice long necks. Angelito ripened one already despite being a 1st year fig, tasted great, high hopes for that. Bakor bc of hte light inside but dark outside I’m hoping will be like a stealth Zaffiro (the seller gave me a ripe Zaffiro holy schnikes that was good) . I also went to Morocco last xmas as a post-divorce gift to myself, I like when I have a story to attach to my plants.

I declared my shinseiki and reine de mirabelle plum officially dead. i think the black plastic pot killed them, it was like boiling soil soup. whoops. I saw another plant headed that way (the columnar peach) so repotted it in a grow bag. Loganberry died and I pulled the glencoe which was on its 4th year of no fruit but the rest of the vine berries are putting up new growth after all the rain. My blueberries never fruited nor flowered which was weird, but fine, they are establishing themselves. That huckleberry never made it I think it was DOA, they wouldn’t refund but at least gave me a free shipping credit.

Weirdly my cruciferious veggies are finally heading up so fingers crossed for the fall. Most of my beans did nada this year but I put in some purple and yellow beans later and the purple ones are really doing great. IDK if the other varieties sucked (dragon tongue and cantare) or if the problem was too much heat.

Got 1 melon each off of sugar baby and mini love- sugar cube was meh but the mini love was SO GOOD. Definitely will grow next year. the PMR51 I missed and I guess only ripened a tiny one- I left it too long and it molded so pulled the plant which had died off basically. The Sugar baby just put more flowers on, we’ll see if it gets another one. My cukes are doing so badly, couple dwarf plants and 2 muncher plants. The muncher cukes are all curved and pointy at one end. I don’t get it. Too much heat? sigh.

Getting tomatoes finally but they are all salad sized! I don’t get it. I am growing dwarfs and I thought mostly they were supposed to have full sized tomatoes. The ones that made it so far are Al Kuffa (3 plants), Tasmanian Chocolate and dwarf Metallica. I have others that haven’t ripened yet. Peppers just starting to come up, I’ve id’d shishitos, rezha, candy cane chocolate, yukari bekan, jimmy nardello, and another longish skinny one that’s either pasilla baijo or urfa. probably PB, I think urfa plants are huge? I think next year I need a major shade cloth operation, well, can’t get everything done in 1 year, and it’s a miracle what I’ve done with the insane stress I’ve had over the year.

OK gotta head to work, that’s it for now.