August 9 rooftop garden update.
Up until now the only thing that we’ve been able to actually really eat has been lettuce and snap peas and the snap peas are becoming more prolific as the season goes on. But now we’re also starting to see many of the other plants come. S right now is trimming the catch fly, having hard already harvested the seeds to ensure that we have them again next spring.
Zucchinis are flowering so hopefully those will get pollinated and produce fruit soon. The corn is not growing anywhere near as high as the ones at the house. But that might I suspect it has to do with the size of our containers.
The sunflowers are the tallest things in our garden and they’re gorgeous and burnt orange and red leaves that pop beautifully up against the vivid blue, green of the mountains.
The potatoes are everywhere. When I say everywhere, everywhere I’m excited to see how big the actual tubers are. Especially if we already know that some of them were cramped.
We did the three sisters companion planting with sunflowers and corn being the stalks for the peas and the beans. Then the squash below providing shade and helping retain moisture in the soil. Meanwhile, the beans and the peas help return nitrogen to the soil for the heavy feeders. I would say it’s working really really well. Even just looking at the sunflowers now they’re growing in a kinky way because the bean and pea tendrils are pulling and hooking onto them as they both grow.
The basil is bold and fragrant and I look forward to making pesto with it soon. I already picked an entire bowl so that we could make fresh pasta with pesto, but then forgot. And then it will sit in the fridge. So we’ve been around as we’ve been away most of the summer.
It’s kind of hilarious that we’re also amateur first year doing three gardens in one season. The same summer where we’re gone for at least a few days each week on different fun trips around the Pacific Northwest.
For the first time I’ve let my mint bolt. I’ve always harvested mint continuously throughout the season to make tea but this year I just decided to let it bolt since the containers weren’t entirely full from the propagated ones. And so I just wanted them to kind of grow out. It turns out though, that letting the mint bolt and the lemon balm bolt has meant that we’ve like had a lot more pollinators. And there’s also these really cute, tiny flowers that sprout out from the bolting, adding to our many pops of color throughout the garden.
There is so much vibrant color on the roof. The orange and reds of the marigolds. The purples and mint greens of the wandering dudes. The fuchsia of the dianthus.
Gus is spooking in the corner always adventuring in his little rooftop kingdom.
Now S is trimming his pepper plants and I’m looking forward to seeing what kinds of things he cooks up in the kitchen. That’s both spicy and tasty just like him. Lol
It took a while to get started. But we’re starting to get a lot of the trailing happening on the plants that we’d put on the perimeter of the boxes. So that we would have that hanging effect. And now the creeping jenny as well as the potato vines and the wandering dudes are all falling, cascading over the boxes which creates these beautiful full railing planter boxes that are both decorative and useful for both food garden plants and visual beauty.
There is so much happening in the hanging baskets. Since the beginning of the season was pathetic, we got to a point where we just started throwing seeds everywhere and hoping for the best. We have one hanging basket is so ambitious in receiving light. The stocks have grown themselves and are propping themselves up against our roof. It’s like a letter from strata waiting to happen. S says “They can’t be disturbed until they finish their mating season. Another hanging basket that we have on the other side of the patio started trying to creep on our our string lights so S put up a an extension cord to help it along.
It’s 8:44pm and the sunset at 8:37 today, or something around there. So we’re right around sunset. There’s that beautiful haze comes with summer heat and the last rays of the day.
It’s beautiful up here. Haven’t even updated all of the plants that we have. But I’m okay with that and keep tracking.
It’s beautiful up here. It’s is peaceful up here. And just seeing all these living things change and have a lives of their own. It is just so fascinating. Even day to day it feels like so much changes, like the sunflowers chasing the rays of sun. Because we’re gone for a few days at a time camping on different trips, I am always fascinated when we get home and just seeing how much happened in only two or three nights. It’s really incredible just to be surrounded by this fascinating and awe inspiring environment.
I love our garden. I love it for all the life that it brings into our life. The diversity of plants, both edible and decorative. The microorganisms in the soil. All the pollinators and the bees and the insects. The hummingbirds we have to keep chasing off before Gus sees them… The crows on their evening commute. Spooky Gus stumbling across the sectional armrest like he’s drunk. And us: we’re alive. We’re here. We get to experience this and learn with it.
As I say this stuff and S pulled out a carrot that is probably about the same size as some of my like a small crochet hook. If at that if that but I I feel we learned a lesson here. Spacing, spacing spacing. I hope that that’s a lesson we only do this year. Or we could be just really stupid. Forget all of this by next year.
I think we got a little bit of impatient when things took so long to start. Just kind of overdid it later. I was just throwing seeds to the wind which wasn’t a smart idea but… we live and learn. And that’s exactly it.
A spider walks upside down on the leaf of a sunflower. I once used to be horrendously afraid of spiders and although I still get a shiver down my spine when I think about it too much, I appreciate what they do for this whole ecosystem appear on our garden.
Breath in. Breath out. Take a mental photo of this evening and save it in my heart.