I am not pruning anything. Plants are still able to be roped in by my improvised bamboo stake and twine trellis system. We'll see how this works out.

I'm also operating on the assumption that now, with my plants firmly established in their pots, it would be almost impossible to over-water them. With other plants, over-watering becomes a problem when media is decomposed or drainage is bad. I have neither of those problems. I read to wait until it's dry an inch and a half down. My plants looked wilty when I did this.

Espanola improved chile has set fruit. I also munched another 4 inch zucchini this morning. I also ate my first two bush beans of the season. I have the feeling none of these are going to make it into the kitchen.

Each of the large pots got a handful of manure and a tablespoon of tomato-tone.

My Container Garden Setup

Here's the view from my rooftop. The pointy one left of center is the Empire State Building.

For other poor souls trying to figure out how to garden in containers I figured I should go over my setup. There is a ton of conflicting information on the net, and I waded through most of it. The two places where I did find consensus were container size and potting medium. 5 gallons works, 15 gallons is better, and the mix should be a light, well draining, soil-less mixture.

I have 3 toms in 5 gallon buckets with drainage holes drilled about 2 inches up on the sides. The rest are in 14 gallon nursery planters I picked up on the cheap. The pots/drainage holes are all lined with black landscape fabric to keep mix in the pots.

Everything is planted in Pro-Mix, except for Kellogg's Breakfast, which got Miracle Grow moisture control. Everything is mulched with about 2 inches of shredded cedar mulch. All the pots that are not white plastic have been wrapped with white sheets that I cut up. The mulch and the sheets make a big difference since the roof gets very hot at midday.

At planting all pots got a handful of Osmocote time release, a giant handful of dehydrated cow-manure fertilizer, a handful of bone meal, a handful of epsom salts, and a tablespoon of Espoma Tomato-tone. I mixed all of this into the top 8 inches of medium.

When one is undertaking vegetables for the first time, working out the fertilizer is probably the most frustrating part. I settled on an average of sorts from a couple of different posters on various discussion forums, figuring that something would work. From here on out I'm going to stick to the tomato-tone guidelines and side dress with the manure monthly.

Garden on June 26

And here we are June 26th.

Here's what I'm growing:
-tomatoes
Bloody Butcher
Black Cherry
Matt's Wild Cherry
Druzba
Anna Russian
Big Beef
New Big Dwarf
Kellogg's Breakfast

-peppers
California Wonder
Improved Espanola
Peguin

Zucchini hybrid
Bush Blue Lake snap beans,
Cucumber hybrid


The tomato list I put together as well as I could given the late date I discovered that I could have a garden this year. The rest of my list is not as sexy as it might be, but I figured that run of the mill hybrids would be better than nothing at all.

I munched my first 4 inch zucchini yesterday btw. Fruit has set on Bloody Butcher (10 days ago), both cherries, and Big Beef. All the others have flowers and will set fruit soon I hope. Bush Blue Lake's have beanlets and the zucchini is going bonkers. Nothing on the cukes yet but they went in last as an afterthought.

Garden on June 6

Here is my garden on June 6th.

I moved in June 1. Planting began June 2. Everything was in by June 8. This is a little late, but May weather was terrible anyway, so I may have actually saved myself some headaches.

How much food can you grow on a rooftop that gets full sun all day long in queens? I don't know yet either.