Zucchini - Rooftop 0, Garden 4

I still don't know why, maybe wind, maybe excessive heat but the zucchini and cucumbers do not thrive on the roof. They do thrive in a traditional ( in the soil on the ground). I have no viable zucchini or cucumbers on the rooftop but after two weeks away, I have lots from my garden on the ground. Zucchini bread anyone?

Strawberry Fact or Fiction?

I heard recently that strawberries taste sweeter when served on a white plate rather than a black plate. I actually have no idea whether it's true but I can attest to the fact that these beauties from my own garden tasted delicious with my cereal!

Mmm mmm good!

Dreaming of my own Tomatoes!

At the moment there's not too much to do but check on the rooftop situation every week or so and add fertilizer (since I have quite a few blooms). I think we are a bit behind as we've had lots of rain and not as much heat and sun as we sometime do in June - or maybe I'm just not remembering correctly!

Every year the zucchini have started off well and then done poorly. I added compost to the grow bucket - I hope this year might be The Year of the Great Zucchini!

The hybrid Brandy Wine, bought on a whim.

My first tomato. They all look fine but I did have to pluck off several brown or spotted leaves from all the tomato plants. There are lots of blossoms though so I am hopeful! I'v also planted beets - my first time every. The ones on the rooftop and fairing much better than those in my traditional garden.

Wait till May 24

We had some warm weather so I thought it was safe and planted around May 4th... apparently waiting till after May 24 is safer! Anyway, I only lost a zucchini and a cucumber due to the low (1C) temperature.

This year in an effort to to cut down on the work of hauling buckets up and down from the roof in order to change out the soil I removed the old plant material and roots from the underside of the container, topped up the containers with some new soilless mixture (Promix HP).

Wrap up for 2012 ...Finally

Overall 2012 was a great success on the rooftop. Tomatoes and peppers were prolific other than the Brandy Wine. Cucumbers and zucchini had very poor yield. Because my sister and niece both grown zucchini in containers I don't think the container is this issue per se - it may be lack of nutrients (more on this later) or the wind on the roof. I'm not giving up on them yet and will try again this year!

On a whim I also grew a shallot - which was massive, one half of it was nearly as big as my rather large coffee cup!

I put the water soluble fertilizer into the float bucket and because of how the buckets were connected to the irrigation system the first two tomato plants (which were connected in series) got more fertilizer than other plants. I think this might have been the problem with the Brandy Wine tomato and the zucchini & cucumbers.

We - and by we I mean Martin has fixed this problem so that fertilizer gets distributed evenly hoping that in 2013 I might finally overcome my total failure at zucchini and cucumbers! 

The Nat's Squash

Hey Nat - here's your butternut squash. You should come visit it some time ;-).

Butternut Squash

Ultra Girl places 1st in Toronto Tomato Olympics

I harvested my first two tomatoes this morning, two ultra girls from separate plants. It was too tempting so I cut a slice and taste one - it's a small to medium sized fruit with low acid and mild flavour. The best tomato I have tasted since the rooftop harvest ended last year!

First Ultra Girls and Sheppard Pepper

In addition, I counted 9 yellow peppers on one of the plants. It's hard to believe because it has barely more than 9 leaves! I'm expecting a bumper crop.

Fruit laden and beginning to ripen - yellow peppers

Some plants seemed to have suffered during our prolonged heat wave. One brandywine plant blossoms all looked fried. I thought it could be either lack of nutrients, lack of pollination, or heat stroke. The pollination doesn't seem to be the problem though since most other plants have been pollinated. I can't deal with the heat stroke - other than to provide ample water. So I added eggs shells and fertilizer to everything last week. The struggling brandywine now has new blossoms on it so we'll see what transpires. All the other tomato varietals are doing well with lots of fruit and blossoms.