Bucolic Bushwick

Reading Round Up: Red Alert Edition

2013-05-21T10:00:00.000-04:00

Start Your Urban Homestead for One Dollar

Plants on red alert in the battle for light

Want to Keep Bees or Chickens in Boston? Now, There are Rules

Astrogarden Rover: How Can We Design a Garden for Mars?

Making Ice-Cream More Nutritious With Meat Left-Overs

Newark Promoting Urban Farms

Candy Totally Won't Make You Fat, Says Study Funded By Big Candy

For two Army vets, Dallas urban farming offers purpose and therapeutic value

Mini Indoor Allotment Gardens

Fake Food Fight

A box of sugar? Pick the best cereal for you

Organic Food Industry Gains Clout On Capitol Hill, Causing Tensions Within Congress

Agriculture in China Predates Domesticated Rice: Discovery of Ancient Diet Shatters Conventional Ideas of How Agriculture Emerged

Share My Dabba - A small sticker trying to make a difference

Luxury travel trends: Hyper-local food

7 Weird & Wonderful Uses For Pepper

European Food Carving Art Championship

U.N: Eat insects, save the world

Breakfasts Around the World

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Almost There

2013-05-16T10:00:00.000-04:00

Alright, the rooftop garden is ready to go. Every container has been mulched and fertilized, limed too if they are used to grow tomatoes (helps prevent blossom end rot). All they need now are the plants and support cages. The tomato plants will be planted this week, the peppers some time next week and melons the week after.

The Jasper F1 cherry tomato plant that was planted ahead of the others is doing well. It's noticeably larger than last week's photo.

I'm still using the mini greenhouse on top of the container. Most days it stays off, but on high wind days it goes back on. If overnight temperatures dip into the 40's, then it gets completely covered to trap heat, but those days are getting rarer and rarer. At some point I'll remove the greenhouse entirely so I can add a support cage.

The potatoes have sprouted, yay!

Still no sign of the corn.

The strawberry plants were still being harassed by birds so they are now hiding behind netting. I think I saw a few fruits developing, but I'm going to wait until they get a bit larger before I take a photo.

All the flowers seedlings have been transferred the their permanent homes. They're still quite scrawny so they're all hiding under nets to keep out the birds.

1 Pint Liquid Fertilizer & 2 Bags of Granular Fertilizer: $36.33

2013 Running Total: $212.96

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Reading Round Up: Edible Furniture Edition

2013-05-14T10:00:00.000-04:00

Slow motion video of kids trying new foods

Edible furniture for times of crisis

Marijuana mix-up: Brooklyn building superintendent, cops at first mistake tomato plants for pot

Don’t Feel Like Cooking? Try Your Neighbor’s Kitchen

Hong Kong’s farms transition to attract urban hobbyists

The Language of Junk-Food Addiction: How to 'Read' a Potato Chip

Space Saving Collapsable Self-Watering Planter

FabJam event theme: ‘Urban Farming’

Building a $325,000 Burger

Kung Food: Mixing Martial Arts With Urban Agriculture

Urban Agriculture in Delhi: Thousands of Invisible Farmers

Detroit Urban Farming Enterprise, RecoveryPark, Poised to Revitalize East Side and Create 18,000 Jobs

DIY vertical planter for small space gardening

Florida restaurant (once again) sells lion meat tacos

The History of Baseball Stadium Nachos

7 Dodgy Food Practices Banned in Europe But Just Fine Here

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New Plants on the Roof

2013-05-09T10:00:00.000-04:00

On Deck corn is on the roof! The seeds were sowed at the beginning of May, once the overnight temps moved into the 50's. The netting keeps out any curious birds. I've been checking every day, but so far no signs of sprouting. This is my first time growing corn so I'm sure I'll be watching this container like a hawk the entire growing season.

The Jasper F1 cherry has been planted ahead of schedule in the 22 gallon tote, the one I regularly use as a mini greenhouse. The nights have gotten warmer and this container is one of the few that I can completely enclose overnight to trap heat so I felt comfortable taking the chance.

Potatoes are a surprise crop for this year. I stopped by HD to buy more of my trusty all-weather white duct tape, ended up browsing the garden section and found Yukon Gold seed potatoes in the flower bulb rack.

No signs of sprouting yet. This is another first for me so I'll also be observing this pot very closely throughout the season. I've read potatoes do not like wet feet so they are in a standard pot instead of a self watering container. No water reservoir means I'll have to take extra care to make sure the pot never dries out. I see some soda bottle drip irrigation in my future.

The strawberry plants are doing well. The first flush of flowers have appeared.

I'm going to swap out the black plastic mulch for white soon. The black is starting to retain too much heat.

The remaining plants continue to be hardened off. They're up to about 12 hours outdoors per day.

Yukon Gold Seed Potatoes & 16" Round Pot: $11.97

2013 Running Total: $176.63

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Reading Round Up: Chicken Diapers Edition

2013-05-07T10:00:00.000-04:00

Chicken Diapers? Urban Farming Spawns Accessory Lines

Taco Bell To Launch $1 Menu

Hell's Kitchen CSA Lets Veggie Fans Sponsor Shares for Needy Families

New York school goes all-vegetarian

How to properly eat an apple, core and all

A Hard Look at 3 Myths about Genetically Modified Crops

BK Farmyards: Urban Farm Training Program

How to feed 10,000 people from food grown on 3 acres in the city

Urban Gardening: An Appleseed With Attitude

As Honey Bee Numbers Drop, U.S. Sees Threat to Food Supply

Glowing plants and DIY bio succeed on Kickstarter

Boston apartment looking for ‘urban farmer’ renters

Childhood food, skin allergies on the rise

Should we all just order groceries online?

Transgenics: A New Breed of Crops

Food Tripping

Beyond the Numbers: The Lure of the Family Farm

Vancouver’s urban farm school gets growers thinking like businesspeople

Andrew Mowbray Grows Square Building Blocks from Living Gourds

The Ripple combines a bowl and plate, and adds a handle

Forget Fake Sugar: Salt Replacement Technology Is Now in Your Baked Goods

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Rooftop Container Maintenance and Repair

2013-05-02T10:00:00.000-04:00

Last weekend was warm enough to leave the roof door open so I ran the hose from the bathroom and used the rest of the new soil to fill my 2 largest self watering containers, the 26 and 22 gallon totes. Before the new soil was added the containers had to be cleaned and disinfected since I did not want to pass on any lingering disease from last year's tomato plant to this year's plant.

The containers were cleaned with dish soap and vinegar. Vinegar for disinfecting and dish soap for suds so I could to be sure about complete coverage. Besides, cleaning with suds is much more satisfying than swishing around clear liquid.

While the containers were drying in the sun I replaced the soil cups on the water reservoirs. The old ones looked like they were about to split open.

Since the containers were completely disassembled I took the opportunity to line the inside of the totes with aluminum foil, shiny side facing out. This will help keep the soil and water cool when the summer heat arrives. It will also prevent algae from growing in the water reservoir and along the inside of the totes, a nice bonus.

One of the Garden Patch GrowBoxes has cracks in the 2 front corners of the water reservoir. The top edges of the water reservoir help support the weight of the soil chamber. Now that there are cracks in both corners the front edge of the reservoir is no longer supporting the weight of soil chamber.

As a result, the soil chamber is sagging into the reservoir. Soil sits in water when the reservoir is full, which is not a healthy growing environment. I need to lift the soil chamber out of the water reservoir and shift the weight off the corners so that the cracks don't become worse over time.

I taped the corners back up with duct tape and added bamboo support sticks inside the water reservoir to prop up the soil chamber.

A closer look. You can see the original paint line from when I spray painted the containers white. It looks like the soil chamber slipped at least half an inch into the water reservoir.

I refilled the GrowBox with wet soil to see if the bamboo sticks can hold the weight and so far they seem to be working. Can they take the additional weight of a mature tomato plant? I'll find out in a few months.

Seedlings getting some outdoor time.

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Reading Round Up: Old Burger Edition

2013-04-30T10:00:00.000-04:00

Cupcakes: No longer the darling of retail?

How Much Food Five Bucks Will Buy You Around the World

14-Year-Old McDonald’s Burger Looks Good Enough to Eat

How Mail-Order Chickens Became a Multimillion-Dollar Venture

Would You Eat AquAdvantage Salmon If Approved?

Scientists Are Trying to Get Supermarket Tomatoes’ Flavor to Catch Up

Rooftop farms: The future of agriculture?

For Development in Brazil, Two Crops Are Better Than One

Boulder-based Online Grocer Now Serving Nine States an Abundance of Organic

Man Cooks and Eats His Own Finger After Losing It in an Accident

Time-lapse film shows a year in a family’s food garden

Make Your Own Rooting Hormone From Willow Twigs

Better than Compostable Tableware? A Spoon You Can Eat

Singapore: From garden city to urban farmland

Europe Needs Genetically Engineered Crops, Scientists Say

The Ancient Urban Food Gardens of Sana’a, Yemen

Nine gardening myths debunked

Venture Capitalists Are Making Bigger Bets on Food Start-Ups

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Melon Seeds Sowed

2013-04-25T10:00:00.000-04:00

Melon seeds were sowed last weekend, already a few look like they're about to sprout. It's important to note that the melon seeds were started in cups, not in jiffy pellets like the prior seeds. I've learned melon seedlings do not like to be moved, so keeping transfers down to a minimum is best.

The other seedlings have been potted up to 10 ounce party cups and given one feeding of a very diluted, I think one quarter strength, liquid fertilizer. Feedings will occur every 1 or 2 weeks until they are moved to the roof.

Also, the heat mat has been turned off, the first baby step in preparing the seedlings for the roof. Next weekend I'll start leaving the seedlings outside a couple hours a day and then steadily increase that time until planting day arrives.

One thing I forgot to photograph before potting up was that I removed the netting from the jiffy pellets before the seedlings were transferred to the cups. This makes it easier for the roots to expand into their new home.

Not much going on on the roof right now. Flower seedlings are still in the mini greenhouse. I have not direct sowed the corn seeds yet, nights are still too chilly. Once evening temps stay in the 50's I'll start monitoring soil temp in the corn container in preparation for planting.

Ozark Beauty strawberry plants are steadily growing. And being harassed by birds, note the snipped leaves. If they don't stop at some point I'll setup a frame with window screen fabric to keep them away.

How are your seedlings doing?

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Reading Round Up: Blandito Edition

2013-04-23T10:00:00.000-04:00

Blandito – a burrito in furniture form

Scientists Transform Cellulose Into Starch: Potential Food Source Derived from Non-Food Plants

Freeway Foraging

Nomad Gardens: A Modular Moveable Feast for Vacant Lots

Black Sabbath helps plants to grow but Sir Cliff Richard 'kills them'

How One Family Helped Change the Way We Eat Ham

Urban farm by day, jazz venue by night planned for Clinton Hill vacant lot

An Environmentalist on the Lie of Locavorism

How Cubans' Health Improved When Their Economy Collapsed

HAPIfork smart fork hits Kickstarter

Australia’s 60 Minutes TV Show Features ‘City Farms’

Must Britain now Dig for Survival?

Orlando, Could this be the future of farming?

Chicago, Streetwise Vendors Now Selling Fruit in Some Neighborhoods

Three ‘moos’ for a spirited idea

Nomad Gardens: A Modular Moveable Feast for Vacant Lots

Advice for New Food Gardeners

Live Screen vertical garden presented during Milan Design Week

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Reading Round Up: Stock Photo Edition

2013-04-16T10:00:00.000-04:00

21 Pictures Of Hands Gently Cupping Dirt

The Green Death

The global farm grab is on

Daft Punk to Debut Album at Farm Show in Tiny Australian Town of Wee Waa

Tastes Like Cricket: Designing a Delicious, Insect-Based Food System

Hydroponic Wine Bottle Wall Garden at Student Bar

Astronauts' Favorite Space Food: Shrimp Cocktail

Brooklyn Grange setting up mini-farms, beehives and chicken coops all over city

Grow Your Own Food: 5 Gardening Tips For Early Spring

The Cuban diet helps you lose weight, live longer

Look How Quickly the U.S. Got Fat (1985-2010 Animated Map)

Monsanto Claims to Ditch Herbicide While Selling More of It

Now vs. then: how potato chips are made

No plucking joke: Luxury chicken hotel even offers turndown service

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Seedlings Are Up

2013-04-11T10:00:00.000-04:00

All tomato and peppers seeds were sown at the beginning of April, melon seeds will be started mid April and corn seeds will be direct sown once the soil temp reaches 55-60 degrees.

The seeds of the ultra early tomato variety I bought this year, Beaver Lodge, were sown in cups and placed outside in the mini greenhouse as soon as they sprouted. I bring them in overnight if the temp dips to 40 or below, otherwise they stay outside. The plan is to get them acclimated to the roof as soon as possible so that they can be planted a couple weeks ahead of everything else.

The tomato seeds took about a week to sprout. The peppers took about a week and a half. The heat mat is on for 12 hours, from 8pm to 8am, and the grow light stays on for 16 hours, from 7am to 11pm. The dome stays off completely because the weather has been all over the place and I don't want to accidentally cook the seeds because I forgot to take the dome off on a warm day.

Planting plan:

26 Gallon Box: 1 Brandy Boy Tomato F1
22 Gallon Box: 1 Jasper Cherry Tomato F1
Garden Patch Grow Box: 1 Cosmonaut Volkov Tomato OP
Garden Patch Grow Box: 8 On Deck Corn F1
16" CB2 Square Container: 1 Beaver Lodge Tomato OP
16" CB2 Square Container: 1 Japanese Trifele Black Tomato OP
16" Round Pot: 1 Minnesota Midget Melon OP
16" Round Pot: 1 Minnesota Midget Melon OP
16" Round Pot: 1 Serenade Melon F1
16" Round Pot: 1 Serenade Melon F1
Southern Patio Growing Tower: 3 Planet Pepper F1
12" CB2 Square Container: 2 Giant Aconcagua Pepper OP
12" CB2 Square Container: Ozark Beauty Strawberry
12" CB2 Square Container: Ozark Beauty Strawberry
12" CB2 Square Container: Flowers
12" Square Pot: Flowers
12" Square Pot: Flowers
12" Square Pot: Flowers
12" Square Pot: Flowers
12" Round Pot: Flowers
12" Round Pot: Flowers
12" Round Pot: Flowers
Water Cooler: Flowers

Flower seeds were sown mid April, they've been on the roof in the mini greenhouse from the beginning. Once they get large enough for the birds to ignore they'll be moved to their pots.

The strawberry plants were another gift from rooftop gardener Dan. They've been outside since the beginning as well. Hardy little fellas, they've already resumed growing.

Tuesday and Wednesday were really nice in NYC so I was able to leave the roof door open and run the hose from the bathroom sink to fill some pots with new soil. I don't want the new, very dry, soil to blow away as soon as I open the bag so a water connection is a must when moving it around on the roof.

Self watering container mix and fertilizer from gardeners.com: $92.29

Total: $92.29

2013 Running Total: $164.66

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Reading Round Up: Wartime Farm Edition

2013-04-09T10:00:00.000-04:00

Wartime Farm: 8-part TV series from BBC. Great series, give it a shot!

The New Pork Gospel

Artist Hong Yi Plays with her Food for 30 Days

Study: 'Organic' Labels Make Food Taste Healthier

Urban farming on brink of corporate era

Verifying That Sorghum Is a New Safe Grain for People With Celiac Disease

Thieves In Germany Make Away With Five Metric Tons of Nutella

Taping of Farm Cruelty Is Becoming the Crime

Internal Emails Reveal FSIS Was Divided on ‘Pink Slime’

New 'Dual Resistant' Tomatoes Fight Lethal Pests With One-Two Punch

Superfund meets super-fresh at farm-topped Whole Foods in Brooklyn

Fast-growing vegetables that produce fresh flavours

English Farmer Makes Vodka from Cow Milk

Young company plans Maine’s first commercial-scale aquaponics facility in North Yarmouth

From mushrooms to dandelions, foraged food finds way to U.S. tables

Indoor farm has Green Spirit: ‘Vertical’ agriculture focus of sustainable forum

19,000 Plates and Counting: Beastie Boys' Mike D Runs a Free Food Truck

Obama Proposes Making Food Aid Less Insane

Street-smart seeds: How to grow a garden that feels at home in the city

Study: People Who Eat More Fish Live Longer

New labeling system may minimize meat mystery

This Edible Office Grows its Own Lunch

Need Plants to Plant, Have Plants to Give – Try PlantCatching

No noon meal for kids in debt at middle school

Volunteers turn fast food land into community orchard

Demand is growing for produce from local rooftop farm

Infographic: From Pit to Plant, How to Grow an Avocado at Home

Gluten: 5 things you need to know

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Reading Round Up: Peep Edition

2013-04-02T10:00:00.000-04:00

Peep-Infused Vodka, and Other Things to Do With 2 Billion Gelatinous Birds

Feeding the World's Under-Nourished...with Crickets

Livestock-to-Human MRSA Transmission Confirmed

Growing Plants On Mars

Man caught with 21 tons of stolen cheese

How Nature Resets Our Minds and Bodies

Five Tips for Launching an Urban Garden

Gardens: eat like a Tudor

Myth of Family Meals in Parent-Child Bonding Gets Debunked

Is farming inside high-rise buildings viable?

Multi-Toxin Biotech Crops Not Silver Bullets, Scientists Warn

Horsemeat Detected in Chicken Nuggets in Greece

Study: Eat Protein in the Morning

On the Menu This Easter in Newfoundland: Seal Flipper Pie

Would You Choose an Apartment That Traded a Parking Space for a Garden?

Former CIA Employees Claim Pot Raid Prompted By Indoor Gardening

Gene Discovery May Yield Lettuce That Will Sprout in Hot Weather

Rooftop Farm Brooklyn Grange Adds Flower Share to CSA

How Many Cinnabons is 2,000 Calories? How Many Almonds?

What If Government Took Food Waste Seriously? Well, the EU Does

Gum Chewing May Improve Concentration

World’s Hottest Pizza Is Three Times Stronger than Police Pepper Spray

'Obesity on the menu' for kids, group says

UK: Why supermarkets are jumping on the gardening bandwagon

A Garden of Delights, Mapped Out in Your Hand

New DNA Test Identifies Ingredients in Foods

To Help Small Farmers Meet City’s Demand, Online Startup Directly Connects Local Farms to Buyers

Tomatoes, Peppers, Strawberries Now Grow Well in Greenland's Arctic Valleys

Top 10: evil plants from films

Tip of the Iceberg: Our Love-Hate Relationship With the Nation’s Blandest Vegetable

Wendell Pierce seeks to 'do well and do good' with New Orleans grocery chain

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2 New Self Watering Containers for the Roof

2013-03-28T10:00:00.000-04:00

It's still a little too chilly to be working on the roof so to keep myself busy I converted 2 standard planters into self watering containers. The planters are from CB2, but I don't think they sell them anymore. They were given to me by sister a few years ago and I'm only just now getting them rooftop ready.

These are soft-sided containers so to add some rigidity I added sticks to the top edges of the pot, underneath where the fabric is folded down. This will make them easier to grab and move around. I also taped some landscape fabric inside the planter to block light.

The new water reservoirs for the pots. These reservoirs have 4 drainage holes, one on each side. Previously I would only add 1 drainage hole per reservoir, but it occurred to me that the roof surface is uneven, and if I place a container on a slanted area of the roof its very likely a part of the soil will be sitting in a pool water due to poor drainage, not good. To avoid such swampy conditions, and to ensure consistent air space between soil and water, multiple drainage holes are best.

I don't have enough platforms available to raise these containers off the roof so, as an alternative, I made reflective placemats to place underneath them. The placements are made out of aluminum foil and white duct tape.

The shiny side of the foil faces down, to bounce heat away from the bottom of the planters. Tape is added to the dull side to improve durability.

Self watering container and reflective placemat ready for the roof.

Starting my 2013 rooftop seed selections this weekend. Growing season here we come!

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Reading Round Up: Green Label Edition

2013-03-26T10:00:00.000-04:00

People Think Candy Bars With Green Nutrition Labels Are Healthier

Williamsburg Vacant Lot Will Be Transformed Into Utopia Of Yoga, Urban Farming, Bike Courses

Straw Bale Gardening Makes the New York Times

A Modular Garden That Floats Across The Sea

The Rollie Eggmaster Cooking System turns omelets into sausages, the comments are best part of the article.

'Modern Farmer' Magazine Is a Sleeker, Chicer Farmer's Almanac

Whole Foods, Trader Joe’s, Aldi Say ‘No’ to GMO Salmon

Genetically Engineered Tomatoes Decrease Plaque Build-Up in Mice

Financial Benefits of Plant-Based, Mediterranean Diet

Will the Old Fulton Fish Market Become the Next Pike Place?

Forget Kale: What Farm-to-Table Restaurants Will Be Serving This Spring

Oh, the Avocados You're Missing!

Toddler meals swimming in salt

Sugary drinks linked to 180,000 deaths worldwide

In Triplicate, Genes Make Maize Tolerant to Toxic Soil

FarmedHere, Nation's Largest Indoor Vertical Farm, Opens In Chicago Area

New Spray Product Takes Aim at Salmonella on Poultry

Using The Paper-Towel Technique For Veggie Gardening

How Farms, Restaurants, and Grocery Stores are Designing Waste out of the Food System

Hydroponic farm project sprouts on Kanses City riverfront

America's wildest food habits, revealed

Understanding the Continuous Corn Yield Penalty

Sprout it teaches you how to grow your own vegetables with harvesting schedules, tasks and reminders

Lawn irrigation system in Phoenix used to grow vegetables

It’s Pineapple Season, But Does Your Fruit Come From Hawaii?

A Look at Chicago's Airport Urban Garden

Using crocks to help containers drain? A potty idea

Why Some Mothers Choose to Eat Their Placentas

Thriving Urban Farm Emerges from Unique Partnership Between Waste Water Plant and University

Kraft Mac & Cheese Is Nutritionally Equivalent to Cheez-Its

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Reading Round Up: Twinkies Return Edition

2013-03-19T10:00:00.000-04:00

Free Vegetable Seed Giveaway

“Modern chicken has no flavor” — let’s make it in a lab

Twinkies due on shelves by summer as $410 million bid OK'd

Fungi May Be Able to Replace Plastics One Day

Can This Taco Save America?

Is Corned Beef Really Irish?

Will Work for Food: A Job Finding Site for the Food Movement

The Decline and Fall of Food: How Our Greatest Fuel Source Became Our Greatest Health Threat [Podcast]

Designing a Sustainable Aquaponics System: An Inventor’s Touch [Video]

The crisis in British farming [Audio Slideshow]

Small Scale Aquaponics [Video]

From Parking Lot to Paradise - the Revenge of Urban Agriculture

Aeroponic Vertical Farm: High-Yield Terraced Rice Paddies for the Philippines

Urban agriculture gets Rahm Emanuel's support

Farmscape hopes to bring farming to the city [Video]

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2013 Rooftop Vegetable Seed Selections

2013-03-14T10:00:00.000-04:00

Yay, back for a new growing season! Are you excited? I'm excited, I can't wait to open up the roof.

Without further ado:

Carrot - Short and Sweet, 68 days
Melon - Minnesota Midget OP, 65 days
Melon - Serenade F1, 78 days
Peas (Shelling) - Caselode, 57 days
Sweet Corn - On Deck F1, 61 days
Sweet Pepper - Giant Aconcagua OP, 75 days
Sweet Pepper - Planet F1, 65 days
Tomato (Cherry) - Jasper F1, 60 days
Tomato (Early) - Beaver Lodge OP, 55 days
Tomato (Main) - Brandy Boy F1, 75 days
Tomato (Main) - Cosmonaut Volkov OP, 72 days
Tomato (Main) - Japanese Black Trifele OP, 74 days
Soybean - Butterbean OP, 90 days

I haven't indulged in any impulse purchases yet, so this list might get longer later.

Have you started your seeds yet? I'm waiting until the first week of April. Any sooner just makes for more work further down the line.

I'm trying one new (new to me at least) plant variety this year, sweet corn. Growing corn has been on my list for a long time, but the heights they reach do not mix well with a windy roof so I've always let that wish go. Now, however, I've read about Burpee's new container friendly corn, On Deck, which only gets 4-5 ft. tall, so I'm giving it a try. I hope it works out, rooftop corn would be awesome.

I'll be growing more tomato varieties this year since last year's tomato yield sucked. Last year I grew too many Summertime Green plants, which had very poor productivity on the roof. They skewed my total yield way down. The 1 Mountain Magic plant I grew almost outperformed the 4 Summertime Green plants combined. Oh well, live and learn.

I should have grown a greater diversity of tomatoes, hybrid and open pollinated, early and main season, to lower my risk of such lopsided numbers, which is what I'm going to do this year. A couple more containers will be added to the roof to accommodate the additions.

The cherry tomato, Jasper F1, is a 2013 AAS Winner. Red tomatoes usually don't stand out to me, but Jasper's description really caught my eye (emphasis mine):

Excellent taste, a long harvest window and outstanding performance in the trials contributes to this tomato’s success.

Vigorous vines require little or no fertilization. An added bonus is fusarium resistance and the ability to overcome weather-related stresses.

Excellent flavor and an ability to overcome weather related stress? Sign me up!

Beaver Lodge is my choice for an early tomato. The maturity date is 5 days sooner than the cherry. It's recommended for cool regions so I think I might try to push my luck and put this out a couple weeks earlier than everything else.

Brandywine tomatoes are another plant I have always wanted to try, but the low yield per plant kept me away. Brandy Boy is my hybrid compromise.

Cosmonaut Volkov and Japanese Black Trifele were my wild card picks. For wild card picks I disregarded strategy and risk and just browsed catalogs until something caught my eye. I still apply certain standards for these picks however. They must be open pollinated so I can save the seeds if I choose. Their description must mention a yield/productivity of good or better and their description must mention a flavor of great or better. Tomato descriptions that mention just good flavor, or even worse, omit any reference to flavor at all are avoided like the plague.

For melons I chose 1 hybrid, Serenade, and 1 open pollinated variety, Minnesota Midget. They have different maturity times so I hope to have a constant supply of melons for most of the growing season. The Minnesota Midget seeds were courtesy of fellow NYC rooftop gardener Dan, thanks Dan! Actually, I lost the packet he gave me so I had to re-order them online, but he still deserves thanks despite my mistake.

2 peppers this year. Giant Aconcagua, open pollinated, saved from last year's garden, and Planet, a hybrid. Planet has an early maturity, 65 days, but peppers tend to develop quickly on the roof so I wonder how early this will produce.

The rest of the seeds (carrots, peas and soybeans) will be planted once the main crops expire, or possibly grown indoors. The Caselode peas were bought last year, but I forgot to grow them, so they're getting another chance.

Seeds: $72.37

Total: $72.37

2013 Running Total: $72.37

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Reading Round Up: Edible Spray Paint Edition

2013-03-12T10:00:00.000-04:00

Free Vegetable Seed Giveaway

Bedazzle Your Food with the World’s First Edible Spray Paint

Whole Foods to Label Foods With Gene-Modified Content

Agora Tower: Twisting Skyscraper Wrapped With Vertical Gardens Breaks Ground in Taipei

Techno Bubble: Grimy Clubs Rebuke Brooklyn’s Kale-Obsessed Preciousness

How We Realized Putting Radium in Everything Was Not the Answer

15 handy online tools for gardeners

Video: Build a $300 underground greenhouse for year-round gardening

Will L.A. Elect a Gardener-Mayor?

Video: The Other Side of the Soil Test

Exploring our global food system at the Natural History Museum

How our food gets to the table

Chicago's back-to-the-farm movement

Why plants can be the key to solving crimes

Nutella-gate! Columbia students swipe pounds of popular spread from cafeteria

Aztec superfoods, muscle confusion and other new spring break diets

Video: Ron Finley, "Gangster Gardener" Delivers TED Lecture On Neighborhood Gardens And Health

So You Want to Open a Sustainable Local Food Biz? Don't Forget the Business Plan

Animated Oreos: Playing With Your Food Has Never Been So Adorable

Toronto: Connecting urban farmers looking for spaces with spaces looking for purpose

Ag Gains as Company Transforms 2 Million Tons of Organic Waste to 29 Million Bags of Soil

Small Scale Farm Op Only Miles from Las Vegas Strip Shows Promise of Desert Agriculture

Seattle Puts Healthy Snacks in City’s Vending Machines

UK: The top 15 garden diseases

In more homes, flowers are moving from the table centerpiece to the dinner plate

The Farming Technique That Could Revolutionize the Way We Eat

Vincent Callebaut Unveils Stacked Pebble-Inspired Eco-Farmscrapers for Shenzhen

$48 million and rising: student campaigns transform cafeteria food service

How to Feed a Town: The Incredible Edible Project

Yogurt: Medical Marvel

11 Fresh Ideas for Storing Produce

Changing how food aid is allocated 'may save more lives'

Urban farmer with an army of assistants

Greenbox irrigation system waters your plants with help from your phone

Bitponics: Where Urban Agriculture Meets The Internet Of Things

How Honeybees Inspired This Solution to Food Waste

Grow Your Own Healthy Greens in the Freshlife Stacking Sprouter

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Reading Round Up: Vintage Menu Edition

2013-03-05T10:00:00.000-05:00

Free Vegetable Seed Giveaway

The Shape of Cheese and Chicken McNuggets

Mediterranean Diet Shown to Ward Off Heart Attack and Stroke

Study finds school breakfast is a key to future success

10 Vintage Menus That Are a Feast for the Eyes, If Not the Stomach

Physicist Built a Machine to Separate Oreo Cookies

New York City Farm and Culinary Hotel Concept

More (Stronger) Evidence Linking Sugar to Diabetes

How to Make Yogurt from Powdered Milk

New Program Allows Commuters to Drop Off Compost at Subway Stop

The Fishy History of the McDonald’s Filet-O-Fish Sandwich

New Plans for Manhattan's 80 South Street Revealed

Manchester, UK International Festival: fruit and veg sprout from industrial past

Self-fertilizing Garden Tower Rises to Encourage Home Gardening and Fight Hunger

Loss of wild pollinators serious threat to crop yields, study finds

Milwaukee’s Mayor Tom Barrett addresses dual challenges of property foreclosures and insufficient healthy food access through city farming

Can You Survive on Just $1.50 of Food and Water a Day?

Oklahoma girl's giant cabbage earns her a $1,000 scholarship

Steve Casino’s Celebrity Figurines Are Nuts, Literally!

Orlando, FL leaders move toward allowing vegetable gardens in front yards

Singapore, More HDB multi-storey car parks to house rooftop gardens

9 Surprising Facts About Junk Food

A Promising Fruit: The Tree Tomato

Rice paddies synergise with fish farming

Scientists Bake a Better Loaf of Bread

Urban Harvest KC wants to whet your appetite for aquaponic farming

Insects could be the planet's next food source... even if that gives you the creeps

Austin, TX zero waste grocer releases infographic

Better tomato cage inventor rolls out his product

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Reading Round Up: Massive Attack Edition

2013-02-26T10:00:00.000-05:00

Free Vegetable Seed Giveaway

How Canada produces 5 slices of bacon for every person on the planet

Concrete-Filled Walnuts

Massive Attack (of Vegetables)

Rooftop Farming Flows At New Bronx Housing Project

The Extraordinary Science of Addictive Junk Food

Time Circus Builds a Floating Vegetable Garden on an Abandoned Ship Crane in Belgium

Organic Tomatoes Accumulate More Vitamin C, Sugars Than Conventionally Grown Fruit

Five-Cent Redemption

‘Green Shack’ for South Africa includes vertical vegetable garden

An Example of Urban Farming Done Right

Urbanites combat climate change with rooftop farms

Pasona HQ is an Urban Farm That Grows Food For Its Employees in Tokyo

Ohio man sues gardening store for selling organic compost that contained solid waste

Vancouver's Urban Stream captures the circle of life in a shipping container

Company targets landfill dumping

Peanut Corporation of America from Inception to Indictment: A Timeline

Can Sustainable Food Feed the Whole US?

These Robots Will Do Your Gardening

Can Chemistry Make Healthy Foods More Appealing?

Of Sisters and Clones: An Interview with Jessica Rath

Cookstove With Simple Technology for High Environmental Impact in Haiti

‘Urban Hydro Project’ – food grown in a rooftop utility room

One in five men 'uses garden shed to avoid family arguments'

Why grafting is the secret to great fruit and vegetables

Rooftop Farm in Egypt Finally Trumps Red Tape

Japanese Restaurant Fines Diners For Not Finishing Their Meals

Detroit's Big Dig: Will Urban Farming Get Them Out of the Hole?

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Reading Round Up: Apple Tattoo Edition

2013-02-19T10:00:00.000-05:00

Free Vegetable Seed Giveaway

Heart Attack Grill's top patron dies of a heart attack

Korea’s Black Day: When Sad, Single People Get Together And Eat Only Black Food

The Life and Work of a Chocolate Health Researcher

The Tree with the Apple Tattoo

Need your Girl Scout cookie fix? There's an app, truck and plastic for that

A Brief History of Coffee Enemas

Study the use of nanoparticles in food

'Seed-Keepers': Female Farmers Take on Corporate Monopolies in India

Shipping Container Greenhouse - Urban Farm Unit by Damien Chivialle

Genetically Modified Crops Are Overregulated, Food Science Expert Says

Enriched in Organic Soil, Johnny’s Selected Seeds Grows Seed Stock for the Future

India's rice revolution - audio slideshow

Advance Promises to Expand Biological Control of Crop Pests

Will Eating Decades-Old Athlete Candy Bars Kill You? A Taste Test

St. Paul, MN: Old Hamm's Brewery to become aquaponic urban farm

Urban skyscraper proposed for the year 2050

Urban Aquaponic Farming in the Philippines

Electricity from Living Plants – “Green Electricity” from Your Food Garden

Gowanus Whole Foods Begins To Rise From The Ground

A Role Model for New York City's Affordable Housing

The Guinea Pig Festival of Huacho Has Rodents on the Menu

Wake up! Mountain Dew debuts caffeinated-juice breakfast drink

One answer to toxic food fears in China

Laser device designed for Mars unmasks counterfeit honey

Chocolate shoes a runaway success for Valentine's Day - video

Say 'I love you' with your 3D-printed chocolate face

Nevada Farmer Employs Sustainable Small Farm Business Model that Brings Customers and Profit to Her

Britons give horse a try as scandal piques interest

Thirty-five Water Conservation Methods for Agriculture, Farming, and Gardening. Part 1.

In Copenhagen, daring to innovate on the plate

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Reading Round Up: Pizza Hut Perfume Edition

2013-02-12T10:00:00.000-05:00

Free Vegetable Seed Giveaway

Listening to What the Tongue Feels

Horsemeat scandal exposes the cheap food imperative

What Does Cheese Really Taste Like? [Infographic]

Pizza Hut Perfume Now Available In U.S.

Diet Soda Mixers Get Us Drunker Than Regular Soda Mixers

10 Ways to Cut Your Grocery Bill While Eating Healthier

The World's Top 10 Most Innovative Companies in Food

Guide to Urban Farming in New York State

Indiana soybean farmer sees Monsanto lawsuit reach US supreme court

Urban Gardens From the Seeds of Their Pants

A Garden Rises at South Street Seaport: Morali Architects’ Vegetative Tower

Bye, Bye Big Burger? Diners Try to Cut Calories

Food Waste Entrepreneurs: Turning Trash Into Cash

The Meat Industry Now Consumes Four-Fifths of All Antibiotics

This Artist Uses Meat As His Medium

Majority Of Foodborne Illness Caused By Green Vegetables

Wheat Is Murder?

Scientists Identify Genetic Mechanism That Contributed to Irish Famine

Boston’s First-Ever Rooftop Farm Launches Kickstarter Campaign to Help Grow the Company

HarvestGeek: 'Modern Farmer's Almanac' takes guesswork out of gardening

Nearly Half of All US Farms Now Have Superweeds

This Chocolate Lamp Is Totally Sweet!

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Reading Round Up: Buffalo Chicken Wing Edition

2013-02-05T10:00:00.000-05:00

Free Vegetable Seed Giveaway

Gardening with rapper T.I.

A Brief History of the Buffalo Chicken Wing

Supermarket bars transform shopping from chore to cheery

Garden trough turns out to be Roman coffin worth £100,000

How Did Avocados Become the Official Super Bowl Food?

Boston: Companies cultivating urban-farming initiatives

After 30 years, is a GM food breakthrough finally here?

Borneo: Sowing seeds of self-reliance

The Onion: We Raise All Our Beef Humanely On Open Pasture And Then We Hang Them Upside Down And Slash Their Throats

Backyard Farming Gets Fancy

Caramelized Sugar Painting – A Tasty Chinese Tradition

Plant Scientists Demonstrate New Means of Boosting Maize Yields

17 Plants You Grow from Kitchen Scraps

New water retention technology quenches crop thirst in drought conditions

Why We Took Cocaine Out of Soda

Reading, writing and raisins: how school food innovations are reducing childhood obesity

How to make a genuinely ‘self-watering’ container garden

Tesco drops Irish supplier over horsemeat scandal

Foodservice industry buzzwords that need some explaining

When You Eat Is Why You're Fat

Not Simply Organic, Oregon Farm Finds Success in Embrace of Technology and Sustainable Principles

Hot Pop Factory turns people into 3D-printed Pez dispensers

USDA’s School Lunch Program Moves to Limit Unhealthy Snacks

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Reading Round Up: Economy Burger Edition

2013-01-29T10:00:00.000-05:00

Free Vegetable Seed Giveaway

Eat Less by Altering Your Food Memories

7 photos that reveal what families eat in one week

The secret of the 'special offer' economy burger

Food strategy is a blueprint for Vancouver’s emerging edible landscape

The Maeklong Railway Food Market – A Strange Wonder of Thailand

Startup Seeks to Shape Future of Urban Agriculture with Fish, Automation and Well Designed Hardware

Norway goat cheese fire closes tunnel

How to Grow a Survival Garden

7 DIY small greenhouse ideas

ECO-Cycle kit grows greens and cleans aquarium water

Telling Time Using Potatoes and Soil

The corner store gourmet

UK garden step 'is ancient Sri Lankan moonstone' artefact

New Twist on Home Hydroponic Gardening

Breakthrough: How Salt Stops Plant Growth

A Colorful Winter: Organized Fruits and Vegetables Photographed by Florent Tanet

Faux pas! Food fraud on the rise

Japanese Restaurant Uses Dirt as the Main Ingredient for Its Expensive Dishes

Flexitarianism: isn't it just vegetarianism with cheating?

Lower Fruit Prices Possible with New Ripening Process

'Scarecrow' Gene: Key to Efficient Crops, Could Lead to Staple Crops With Much Higher Yields

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Reading Round Up: Horsemeat Edition

2013-01-22T10:00:00.000-05:00

Free vegetable seed giveaway

Horsemeat scandal: watchdog to test all beef products at UK supermarkets

Man Cracks Open Massive 6 Oz. Chicken Egg to Discover…

Urban Goat Keeping: Things You Should Know Before You Get Your First Kid

The Hot Condiment of 2013? Barrel-Aged Hot Sauce

Penthouse Offices in Union Square Offer Rooftop Farm Plots

Dirty tricks in allotment wars

1935: Miss Idaho Potato

An Environmentalist's Conversion

Check out new garden varieties

Toronto group wants to nurture 100 new urban farmers

The world is running out of soil

Lots of new vegetable varieties available for 2013

How Forks Gave Us Overbites and Pots Saved the Toothless

Reality Check: 5 Risks of a Raw Vegan Diet

ER visits tied to energy drinks double since 2007

Artist Does Amazing Things with Cereal

The Fattening Farms of Mauritania – Force-Feeding Young Girls in the name of Beauty

Fortified by Global Warming, Deadly Fungus Poisons Corn Crops, Causes Cancer

Is America a Nation of Soul Food Junkies?

Why Is Walgreens Selling Sushi? The Changing Business of Drugstores

Asthma, eczema and hay fever may be linked to fast food

For business, food waste a ripe opportunity for savings

Now You Can Farm On Your Computer!

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