Seattle Urban Agriculture

Late Tomatoes!

2009-11-27T13:25:00.000-08:00

The tomatoes I'd brought in on the vine (last post) have mostly pinked up. A few went over the edge and had to be discarded; perhaps more frequent monitoring would have prevented this loss. The yield was nearly a pound to cherry tomatoes!

Of the few I'd left on the vine as an experiment, two had gotten to harvestable state, and a third had already dropped, lying orangey in the dirt like the last leaf of fall (see photo)

I didn't touch the lettuce since it still seems to be coming along. There were tiny, gnat-like bugs swarming in the sun over the Tower tub, and noodling around the lettuce leaves at the Court was a black-and-white bee. It's nice to see some biological activity continuing, albeit at a slow space, even as things cool off.

Total harvest today: 15 ounces of tomatoes, mostly from the commingled items cut green for ripening on the stem

Bringing in Late Crops

2009-11-15T18:28:00.000-08:00

Today's Yield

6 oz tomatoes, harvested green a while back and ripened in newspaper (see photo)
6 oz mixed greens, from Tower Tub (described below)

It was cold last night; not freezing, but I'm concerned about losing the food value of what's left. This afternoon I brought in all the tomatos on stems, to rpen them indoors, except for a very few I left as experiments. I also brought in such greens as looked worth harvesting, leaving the very smallest on the off chance that we might get a warm week to make it worth harvesting.

On the plus side, the aphids seemed all gone. I'd never figured out how to get them off the greens, and I didn't want to give the food bank greens with bugs on them.

Tower
I got quite a few green tomatoes still on the stem, all cherry tomatoes except for one large tomato that had hidden out, green, in the foilage. These got wrapped very loosely in newspaper to control moisture, and set in plastic tubs in our apartment to ripen. Also, I got about 6 oz of greens which I'll drop off at the foodback tomorrow (Monday). I'll let the parsley go a little longer.

Court
The lettuce leaves are mostly browned (see photo). Perhaps I could salvage some leaves by chopping off the brown parts but they aren't acceptable for the food bank.
One exception: the red leaf lettuce. These are too small to harvest today but they don't seem bothered by the weather so I'll check them again later this week.

I got fewer green tomatoes than at the Court. They should ripen up nicely newspaper (see photo above).

In Both Locations
The chard is coming along slowly. Looper worms and aphids had hit them pretty hard but now that it's cold, they seem to be coming back.

Storm-Tossed Tomatoes

2009-11-06T19:35:00.000-08:00

The winds blew strongly last night and much of today. When I checked the tubs, I found maybe a dozen tomatoes that seem to have been flung all untimely from their vine. Most were between the Court tub and wall, leading me to discover whether I could reach them. Many of the leaves are browning, but enough of the bush survives that some of the fruit are ripening, albeit very slowly and with much splitting.

From the Tower tub I took two large green tomatoes, still on the vine, to ripen within newspaper. They should be ready within a week for the food bank.

The Return of the Kale

2009-10-29T21:59:00.000-07:00

The kale in the Tower tubs seem to be coming back to health.

They had been pretty chewed up by the looper worms, and then the aphids were sucking away their precious bodily fluids, but it looks like the cooler and wetter weather have knocked back the pests.

Even slower production

2009-10-25T16:35:00.000-07:00

The tomatoes are ripening very slowly now. Maybe one a day becomes ready, and if I let a few days go by between checks, there's often splitting.

I've heard you can ripen tomatoes if you wrap them in paper and keep inside. I'll experiment with both newspaper and brown paper bags. Newspaper gets the tomatoes dirty, but you'd have to wash them anyway. Today I clipped on branch with about eight green tomatoes on it, from the Tower.

The lettuce at the Tower is doing o.k. A few leaves of one species has started to grey and collapse; I clipped those off. It looks like a general thinning may be due next week.

Notice that the parsley is back- AGAIN!

On the other hand, the lettuce at the court is having problems. The species that has a few grey leaves at the Tower is completely absent at the Court, but there are a lot of grey and dead leave so perhaps we know where they came from . On the other hand, the red-leaf lettuce and the large paddle-shaped greens still do well, although the latter is still plagued by aphids.

At the Court I heard, then saw a chicadee. This is probably one of the crew eating the seeds from the sunflower in the overflow herb pot. While the primary goal of urban agriculture is food for humans, a few sunflowers for the birds may be appropriate, as well has contributors to absorbing sunlight and carbon, while providing nourishment to the human soul.

Still Producing, Slowly - Sunday, October 18, 2009

2009-10-18T16:23:00.000-07:00

Things have definitely slowed down. On the plus side, we don't have to water anymore, as the deluges of the last few days make excess moisture the concern, rather than the reverse. I guess we'll have to clear out some of the tomato foiliage to encourage evaporation, discouraging mold. The plants seem to be cooperating, by shutting down some stems.

As long as we're not getting frost, we'd like to keep trying to pink up the tomatoes that are still green. Eventually we'll have to bring the greenies indoors still on some long pieces of stem, and try to finish them in a box on top of the clothes dryer.

The greens which were the 2nd crop in the Tower greens tub needed thinning, which produced some nice baby greens. At the Court, the greens had started spottier, not as thickly sown I suppose, and grew into adulthood more quickly; we took a batch of adult greens from there. Some had aphids, which I tried to brush off, but I suppose we'll have to assume the recipients will rinse the greens before using.

From the Court

Tomatoes 9 oz.
Greens 11 oz.

From the Tower

Tomatoes 3 oz.
Greens 6 oz.

It doesn't sound like so much when you express it in ounces, but it looks like the food bank'll be able to give out the makings of several nice salads - all organic too! I don't think the tomatoes are quick as sweet as during the hottest days of autumn, but they still have good flavor (... judging by the splitties; since we can't foodbank them, they had to be sacrificed to quality testing.)

As I mentioned to Joel when he visited the site earlier this week, keeping up these tubs is not a lot of work; we just have to remember whose turn is whose. There was no weeding necessary, for which I am grateful. Checking the health of the plants was a nice quiet activity in the evening; the morning watering was also a pleasant ritual (...not to mentioned delightful on the hot days!) While the primary purpose may be food, the recreational benefit should not be overlooked!

And the Parsley is BACK! Again!

2009-10-07T11:54:00.000-07:00

At the Tower, that parsley is growing new leaves, even in this cool weather. Will we get a 4th harvest?

The greens are moving slowly but still trying.

Those wormthings seem gone from the chard now, but is covered with little bugs. Still, it's struggling on. Perhaps the cold will eventually finish them off.

Pounds of Tomatoes and the Amazing Parsley

2009-10-02T10:08:00.000-07:00

I hope someone likes parsley because that one plant at the Tower has produced its third bunch of the season ... a half a pound this time!
Today's photo shows the harvested parsley resting in its glory among its leafy friends.

More detailed notes on this week's harvest (to be dropped off at the Cherry Street Food Bank today)

At the Court:

3 lb of mixed tomatoes (large and cherry) plus 3 little hot peppers
1/2 lb of mixed greens

At the Tower:

2.5 lb of mixed tomatoes
1/2 lb of cucumber (more than a foot long!)
1/2 lb of parsley

We've still got still plenty of unripe tomatoes on the bushes, plus a couple of tubs of greens still growing albeit slowly. It's exciting to see how long this goes!

Still Harvesting, September 30, 2009

2009-09-30T19:11:00.000-07:00

I was going to hold off another harvest until tomorrow, just before I would walk to the Cherry Street Food Bank, but noticed a few tomatoes had fallen, perhaps because the wind had been whipping around yesterday.

We pulled a couple of pounds each from both locations but I'll hold off waiting until tomorrow, since I think I can let the green go until the morning; the wind doesn't seem to bother them but the extra half-day might make a little difference in their freshness. The lettuce at the Court and the parsley at the Tower look magnificent! Unfortunately the aphids (or some suchlike) are chowing down pretty hard on the chard. I'll try to knock 'm off with the sprayer tomorrow but I don't see how that could really discourage them much.

Green bugs on the Chard?

2009-09-27T10:02:00.001-07:00

The lettuce continues to grow well. It's pretty remarkable how they are flourishing at the Court!

The mixture of leaf colors and designs are attractive; a tub of mixed salad greens would be a nice way to dress up any way!

And it still keeps growing even in this fall's cooler weather. We may have to experiment with harvesting some leaves and seeing if the plants are happy to keep growing more.

However ...

However, the chard has some green bugs. What are they? What to do?

Slowing Down through September 19 2009

2009-09-22T10:13:00.000-07:00

The tomatoes in particular seem to be growing more slowly. There are some large ones that have been red on the vine but not quite ready to go all week. The weather has been cool and of course the days are getting shorter, so this is not unexpected.

The lettuce continues to grow; some of it in the Court should be ready to go soon but much of it may need another week or two.

More Water, More Worms - Sunday, September 13, 2009

2009-09-13T21:35:00.000-07:00

We got reports today that the soil was dry, so we went to have a look. It seemed kinda borderline, so I gave all the tubs a drink.

We harvested another 1/2 pound of cherry tomatoes, about half from each location. Unfortunately one large tomato had split since yesterday and the crack was fuzzy, so we discarded it.

The greens tub at the Court has some lettuces growing to a pretty good size (as shown) and maybe almost ready to harvest. I had been concerned because the lettuce had been coming up kinda of sparsely, but perhaps I merely accidentally sowed them an appropriate distance apart.

The greens tub at the Tower has a more even and thick crop of lettuce, but the leaves are much shorter. It may be time to thin them. We found a half-dozen more looper works by checking leaves that had holes in them; mostly it was the chard but there's one type of plant in the salad mix that the critters seem to like too. This may be a continuing battle.

Attack of the Cabbage Looper Worms?

2009-09-12T11:50:00.000-07:00

This morning, Saturday, September 12, 2009 we saw what appear to be Cabbage Looper worms in the Tower greens tub. We picked off about a dozen (they went over the side, where most likely they will join the Circle of Life via Brother Crow.)

They seem to have concentrated on the chard, but a few of the lettuce mix plants have bit marks too. Also, there are round, dark green nodes on the tops of some leaves that may be eggs.

What's the next step? This effort is strictly organic; we have no way of knowing when or if people who are sensitive may wander by or be recipients of the food via the food bank, we don't want to poison our community on general principles, and we don't want to disrupt our local micro environment which is already pretty hacked up by development. This is a test of brains: are we smart enough to figure out a solution?

Friday, September 11, 2009

2009-09-11T22:06:00.000-07:00

We gave the plants a good drink; they seem to have soaked up the rain from earlier in the week.

Several of the large tomatoes look almost ready to go but should make it to Monday, when the food bank is open. One had split and had to be wasted.

Cherry tomatos keeping producing, a little all the time

Tower: 3 oz cherry tomatos
Court: 9 oz cherry tomatos

It's not gigantic but it's steady!

The greens are coming up steadily. The parsely at the Tower looks almost ready to harvest for the 3rd time!

Windy and Rainy Sunday, September 6, 2009

2009-09-06T19:58:00.000-07:00

Today started with a strong downpour, so no watering. It was quite windy at sunset; as I noticed the plants on my own patio were whipping about a bit, I figured I'd better check on the Project Plants.

At the Tower, a few cherry tomatoes had fallen or were ready to pick: maybe 1 ounce of Cherry Tomatoes
At the Court, more had fallen (including six or more greenies; perhaps their position near the end of the branches made them more vulnerable): 3 oz Cherry Tomatoes.
Also at the Court one large tomato was starting to split so I harvested it; it should be fine to eat: one 4oz Tomato

It all went into the clean shoe box for eventual delivery to the Cherry Street Food bank. I suppose windiness on a roof is just something we'll have to plan for.

Saturday, September 5, 2009

2009-09-05T11:15:00.000-07:00

The last couple of days each started with a morning rain, so when I checked, each tub seemed pretty well watered & I left them alone.

Today (Saturday) I picked some of the cherry tomatoes and will store in a clean shoebox for delivery Monday. We found out the hard way that storing them in bags mushed some.

From the Tower: 7.5 ounces cherry tomatoes
From the Court: 9 ounces cherry tomatoes

The chard seems to be doing well, although something is nibbling a lacy pattern in their leaves. They seem to be thriving none-the-less. The parsley left in the Tower tub was, IIRC, harvested for the 2nd time last week and is almost ready to go again!

Some large tomatoes at both the Tower and the Court seem almost ready. The Tower features another large cuke too!

Ripening Bounty

2009-08-31T10:42:00.000-07:00

Over 7 1/2 pounds of produce will be dropped off at the food bank today from this morning's harvest. The plants have gone crazy and are producing quite the abundance that is finally starting to ripen in larger quantity. I went down to the planters at the Tower a little before Randy was to meet me for harvesting and gave the tomatoes a good pruning and tying back. They really needed it! By getting them thinned out it will give more light to the things around them as well as help the tomatoes left on the plants to ripen up more quickly. Not that the eggplant seemed to mind having tomatoes drooping over the top of it. That plant is loaded with 3-4 inch eggplants even after we harvested the 5-6 inch ones. Amazing.

The tower greens are doing very well - it won't be long before we are harvesting a good amount of mesclun mix from the seeds that were planted. Today four fall/winter vegi starts were added to the planter to extend the season even further, mostly brassicas. I need to check with Carl to see which ones.

Totals for Tower harvest today:

Cherry Tomatoes - 20.5 oz
Sweet Peppers - 13.8 oz
Eggplant - 9.3 oz
Cucumbers - 2.1 oz
Basil - 6.2 oz

The Court planters are not spilling over quite as much as the ones on the Tower but they are still producing a good amount. The sweet peppers in particular are coming out very heavy. The herbs up here are doing great as well and today we got a good harvest from them. The seeds that were planted on the court seemed to have come up thinner than down on the Tower but what did come up looks very healthy. Four fall/winter starts were added to their ranks as well.

Total Court harvest for today:

Cherry Tomatoes - 15.2 oz
Basil - 4 oz
Sweet Peppers - 14.5 oz
Slicing Tomatoes - 11.3 oz
Cucumbers - 3.1 oz
Eggplant - 8.1 oz
Marjoram - 1.3 oz
Sage - 1 oz
Parsley - 1.2 oz

Add to those number 9.7 oz of Cherry Tomatoes from both the Tower and the Court that Randy picked this weekend and we have a great deal of ripening bounty!

We have had some losses as well. There were many split cherry tomatoes, probably from the bit of rain we had recently. One sweet pepper had a soft rotting spot on the side and one of the hot peppers had been discovered by some sort of pest (a small hole could be seen in the side of the pepper) and caused the pepper to rot out. Also, it seems that a couple of the hot peppers have gone missing at some point. They look a lot like sweet peppers, so someone might have had quite the "karmic" surprise. Still, I have been very pleased with how little vandalism and theft that there has been. It's nice to know that people can respect what we're doing with this project.

Ecologically speaking the planters have attracted a couple types of spiders as natural pest control as well as ladybugs. Not bad for a place right in the midst of the city. And the soil seemed to have come with some mushroom spores as well as there have been a few little ones popping up here and there - our own little ecosystem working itself out here on the rooftops at Centennial.

Sunday, August 30, 2009

2009-08-30T12:57:00.001-07:00

I skipped blogging during a rush week but the plants seem not to have noticed.

Friday Carl from the City of Seattle dropped off about eight starts of chard and another plant that does well in our winters; I think these were from his P-Patch so thanks for the donation! I meant to put them in the ground Saturday morning but an unrelated crisis erupted (...one of the downsides of running a project on volunteers...); when I called Maurey about it she suggested we plant Monday morning when we're harvesting anyway.

When I watered this morning the starts looked o.k. but I gave them a good drink to be sure.

There were a lot of cherry tomatos ready to go, and a few that had dropped. I picked about a pound & set aside for the Monday run. You can see that the lettuce in the Tower tub is coming up nicely; we'll have baby greens soon and very likely some full-sized heads before winter. At that point the chard will want a lot of the space anyway.

The tomato-etc tub at the tower is basically rioting. There's a new cuke on the left and some yellow cukes on the right, with eggplants and peppers peeking out. We should have a good harvest Monday!

Watering and Pondering, Saturday August 22, 2009

2009-08-22T21:36:00.000-07:00

One of the orange cherry tomatos dropped of its own accord, so I must conclude that they ripen orange, rather than just being slow. A couple more tomators came of easily when I wiggled them.

It's not practical to run today's 4 cherry tomatos to the Cherry Street foodbank, so what I'll do is accumulate then through Monday. Any that threaten to go bad I'll use up and replace with one of my privately grown organic cherry tomatos. This way, the numbers all come out right, and nothing it wasted. In a larger enterprise, we'd need a better solution.

I noticed both at the Court and the Tower that some sort of spider had spun a nice web. This suggests to me that there is some biological activity going on, on a scale just a little too small for me to see. There must be tiny bugs working on the plants to feed the spiders that are big enough for me to view. While I'm not especially fond of spiders, as long as they do their thing outside of my immediate living area I'm happy to leave them alone and I'm glad to see them as an indicator that this little corner of the world is livelier than it was just a few short months ago.

Watering, Thursday, Aug 20, 2009

2009-08-20T11:08:00.000-07:00

Not much news today. The soil is between moist & dry so I gave it all some water.

The peppers at the Court are getting really red; the question is, when are they ready to pick?

Small Harvest, Tuesday August 18, 2009

2009-08-18T14:12:00.000-07:00

Today, while watering, I harvested.

The quantity was small but some of the tomatoes needed to go now! Sadly about 30% had split in the heat, as had one eggplant, and had to be discarded. However, now that I know for sure where Cherry Street is, I think I can harvest more frequently swing by on the way out on days that I drive.

From the Court:

Eggplant 13 oz
Tomatoes (cherry) 6 oz
Greens 4 oz

From the Tower:

Eggplant 6 oz
Tomatoes (1 big, 1 cherry) 6 oz
Greens (mostly the parsley from the lettuce tub) 5 oz
Cucumber (1) 7 oz

When you break down things this way, it doesn't look like much. However it totals over 2 pounds of food, fresh & organic, at very little cost. The greens bulk up a lot but don't weigh much.

(Note: Cherry Street is two-way! Look both ways before crossing --- I almost decorated the front of a van!)

Watering, Sunday August 16, 2009

2009-08-16T10:20:00.001-07:00

The eggplants at the Tower are noticably bigger (see photo); the cucumber has a slight gash, probably an accident due to human interaction. It's really remarkable that there haven't been any other negative interactions, other than one (1) cigarette butt and one (1) beer can pull; when you consider the heavy party use of these areas, it's clear that the community is showing great respect and liking for the plants.

The re-seeded salad troughs are showing tiny seedlings now; the Tower seedlings are a little bigger than those at the Court. I noticed some sunflower seed shells in the Tower salad trough. Actually there were a lot of these shells on the ground as well as the trough, appearing to be harmless and accidental additions to the surface of the soil, not anything on purpose or significant.

I thought it was worth noting any interactions with the community, but there really hasn't been that much to report except people always seem positive when I bring it up in conversation.

Squash Sighting, Thursday August 13, 2009

2009-08-13T15:37:00.000-07:00

Watering today, I sighted the first squash at the Tower.

Considering the size, I don't know why I didn't see it before. I hope that this indicates the last few days have been prime growing weather, and not that I'm going blind.

(An alternative explanation is that, at last night's Sustainable Belltown meeting included informal tours of the plantings at the Tower; it's possible the squash was teased out for better growing.)

---

UPDATE: my wife gently pointed out that it's a cucumber, not a squash.

Lightly Raining, Wednesday August 12, 2009

2009-08-12T16:58:00.001-07:00

It was lightly raining yesterday morning, and today morning as well. The soil seems moist so I didn't water. Probably I should water tomorrow, regardless.

The peppers at the Court are starting to color: two of them orange, and one purple (!).

Seeding, Sunday August 9, 2009

2009-08-09T19:54:00.000-07:00

Today I re-seeded the tubs from which the greens had been harvested. The soil was dry, so I gave it a good soak before seeding, and a little more after.

The tub at the tower still had one central herb in it
(see photo; I was hoping we could record the seed packets' fronts in this photo but apparently not). The tub at the Court was empty. I planted a room of redleaf lettuce down the middle of the long axis, and two rows of a salad mix, one on either side. The seeds were 2 packs at $1.69 each, or about $3.50 total with sales tax. The only tool necessary (other than the water) was a simple slotted spoon.

The tomato tubs were not-quite-dry, not-quite-moist so I watered them.