i did a little bit of gardening today (pretty minimal because it's looked like rain all day and i kept getting psyched out of doing more work).
i'm moving at the end of august this year, so i didn't want to go too crazy with the plants, so i have a lot less little outdoor plants than normal. usually i have anywhere from 5 to 10 pots of flowers, but this year i only have 3. pictured below is my kitchen window:
from left to right i have: small catnip, cilnatro, cornflower, basil, and then you can kind of see an additional unknown flower. (people buy me those mixed flower seeds, so i never really have any idea until the flower blooms and i use leafsnap to identify the plant.) not pictured but on the windowsil are 2 additional unknown flowers and some chives.
from left to right: broccoli, cucumber, and kale (you can't see but there's lettuce in front of the kale). i didn't actually get any broccoli from the plants and i learned their pretty finnicky, so i probably won't plant any again for a while. since i have such limited space, i don't want to try multiple seasons of something that won't produce a crop. the broccoli, kale, and cucumber are getting harvested next weekend. i have some 2 types of pepper that will go into the kale pot. i'm debating if i want to dump the soil from the broccoli, or put the extra tomato plant i have in that pot. i've never kept a tomato plant in a smaller pot, and it's kind of cute compared to my huge tomato plant. (both pictured below)
my big tomato plant actually had a terrible week- we got some storms and it got ripped in half. i propped it up and it's still in pretty good condition (all things considered). i was worried since the main stem broke that the top half (where all the flowers and fruit were) would die, but it's still going strong!
i'm not sure how well you can see it, but in the second picture is where the stem got snapped by the wind. i honestly might stop keeping tomatoes in the home depot buckets, i kind of like how manageable the one i've kept small is. i bet if i had moved it to a bigger pot and actually nurtured it sooner, it would be giving fruit now too. (i had a bunch of extra tomato seedlings this year, so i kept one around in a small pot for a while. i only re-potted it to something bigger a handful of weeks ago. i bet if i had moved it to one of my 8" pots from target sooner, it would be in better shape now.)
sidebar: target is putting some of their cheap plastic pots on clearance- i got some of the 8" pots for $2! (they're $3 normally, which is honestly already pretty reasonable. they're a nice size. when i talk about my indoor plants, both are in one of those target pots.)
speaking of indoor plants...
my money tree almost died over the winter and has been limping along. my cat connor will eat plants on sight, so my indoor plant selection is limited and on a shelf he can't get to. as a result, i don't get to pull them down and mess with them very often. because of this, my money tree developed fungal gnats and i didn't realize until i pulled the kalanchoe today. it sucked. i pulled out the dead stems and their roots, and completely re-potted the whole money tree.
so it's like the ugliest thing in the world now, and i'm hoping it doesn't die from shock because i yanked on it's roots a fair bit to get the dead, gross stuff out. the remaining stems all have new leaf growth, so i'm hopeful that i didn't kill it today and this tree will continue to shamble along. if you have any tips for making this look any nicer, please let me know lol.
the kalanchoe is doing fine, i suspect it's actually 3 plants that home depot packaged together but i pruned it a bunch today so i want to give it a break before i really get in there. i pulled all the dead leaves and flowers off and found that it's blooming again! which is neat.
i'm hoping to plant my peppers in a couple weeks, and then it'll just be harvesting and maintaining until the winter. i'm not sure if i'll do a more serious breakdown before i move, if my cucumbers have been productive enough i'll probably trash the plant before the move. we'll see! if you read this whole thing and have any advice or questions- just ask!