First, some gratuitous beautiful herb shots. Taken with my micro lens. (Most photos I take with my iPhone, however, so the quality and detail will vary.) Mint, thyme, and rosemary were in terra cotta pots, while chives and both basil varieties were in the box. I totally squished the basil in there. Too much in one square. These photos are from July 1, 2011.
<—– Lovely thyme (common)
Lovely rosemary —->
Funky purple basil. The flowers are sweet and spicy, so I let it flower just to eat them.
I began to sample the fruits of my labor in the early summer. Herbs, a few spring onions here and there. I was really excited to see what would happen with the tomatoes. I had planted four different kinds in these buckets; grape, cherry, yellow cherry, and a deep purple red that was supposed to yield 2″-3″ fruits. Meh.
These tomato photos are from early July – mid August, 2011.
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- Cherry tomatoes early on.
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- Cherry tomatoes enjoying the sun.
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- Grape tomatoes ripening on the vine.
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- Handfull of sweeeeeet cherries.
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- Grape tomatoes getting tasty.
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- Larger deep red/purple tomato. This is much later in the summer than the cherries.
The following gallery pretty much wraps up the first 2011 experimental season. These photos are from late July – late October, 2011. The grape and cherry tomatoes were the easiest ones to grow, so I decided to stick with the smaller varieties for the future.
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- Collection in late July. Spring onions, tomatoes, herbs.
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- Winston watches over the one hot pepper we had.
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- Lady bug on basil. (Again, I liked to eat the flowers. Picked a lot of basil, too.)
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- Looks like the pepper sucked all of the life out of that plant.
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- Larger tomato. 10 days after the photo in the previous gallery was taken. Don’t know how I missed this on the vine.
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- Parsley.
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- Spicy, flavorful basil.
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- Came up at night to pick. This is October!
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- October 28! Yes! They were still growing in October.
Another note about water. Again, it’s really hot and dry up on the roof, and I don’t have a water up there. Tomatoes are thirsty plants, and between light rain and regular watering, I probably added about a gallon to each container every day, and a gallon and a half to the box and herbs. I used these “self-watering” containers (just the container, not the whole kit) with four gallon reservoirs. It really did help, but it was still pretty tough. When I was able to collect enough rain water, I filled the bottom of the tomato buckets all the way. I usually brought water up twice a day, morning and evening, after letting the municipal water additives dissipate or whatever they did, as someone had suggested. The plants did seem to like the water that sat around for a bit more than the water right from the tap. Rain was best, of course.
Roof Garden Gal 