Inaugural Season Wrap-Up

I realized recently that although Mitten Farms had an excellent yield in its inaugural growing season, that fact is not reflected in the blog.  So with that in mind, here's a flashback to last year's tomato harvest. 

A Selection of Last Year's Tomatoes

Last year Mitten Farms grew numerous types of cherry-sized tomatoes. Two of these varieties are returning again this year due to their successful harvest and flavor.  These are the Black Cherry and the Juliette Roma Grape. 

The Juliette Roma Grape was very similar to the grape tomatoes that are commercially available at grocery stores and eliminated any need to buy those tomatoes during the growing season.  The Black Cherry, in addition to their visual appeal, really tasted like a tomato should, with firm flesh and lots of juice.

One tomato that did not make the cut for the 2011-2012 season is Britain's Breakfast, selected solely for the name's connection to Steve's nationality.  This was the largest tomato of the group and the last to bear fruit.  The tomatoes were somewhat mealy and lacked flavor. Not a winner.  

We also grew Sun Gold tomatoes, which were also beautiful and had a huge yield.  They were very sweet with a golden yellow-orange color.  We are growing a different variety of yellow tomato this year called Lollipop.  As the growing season progresses we will find out how they compare to the Sun Gold! 

Britain's Breakfast

Beautiful Weather Makes Beautiful Plants

The tomatoes are growing pretty quickly this year as a result of some very sunny and warm weather. In fact, I staked the seedlings today because some of them were starting to tip over! 

Mitten came out to the balcony to supervise the process, and to attempt to sample some of the produce.  Fortunately I have learned that she will wait until you defenses are down and then attack the plants. At left, you see the watchful expression on her face - she knows exactly what she's up to! 

As for me and Steve, we spent this breezy, sunny Saturday sitting at the pool at The Standard Hotel, just one island away on the Venetian Causeway. 

Welcome to the 2011-2012 Growing Season!

If anyone is out there, welcome back!

The Farm

Mitten Supervises The Progress

It has been an eventful inaugural week at Mitten Farms.  Last Saturday, I ventured down to Fairchild Tropical Garden to procure heirloom tomato seedlings for this year from Bee Heaven Farms. Although I initially told my boyfriend that I would only grow two kinds of tomatoes this season I had to renege on my promise after I saw all of the options.  So this year, we are growing six kinds of tomatoes, herbs, and an heirloom "early" jalapeno. Naturally, Mitten supervised the planting process.

Jalapeno and Herbs

For herbs, we have two kinds of basil (regular and purple, which isn't as tasty but has a beautiful color), rosemary, thyme, and chives.

Mitten is taking a great deal of interest in the new plants.  On Tuesday morning, she pranced over to one of the tomato seedlings to investigate it.  When I tried to push her back (since tomato leaves are supposed to be bad for cats) she wriggled out of my grasp and chomped on leaf! The vet laughed at me when I called asking I needed to bring Mitten in, but I am keeping her away from the tomatoes nonetheless.

I may not post again until the tomatoes start to flower, but keep checking back for updates!

Nasturtium Explosion

 Several years ago, on a visit with Murey in Chicago, I acquired a nasturtium seedling at the Chicago Botanic Garden. I figured that I could certainly grow it here in Miami, if it grew in Chicago.  To the contrary, I killed it within a week.

Given the auspicious growing conditions at Mitten Farms, I decided to give nasturtiums another try.  I ordered a packet of seeds from Burpee and planted them with the tomatoes, thinking they would provide nice ground cover in the containers.  The seeds sprouted months ago, and there have been tons of leaves but no flowers. Until last week, that is.  Now Mitten Farms has nasturtiums in orange, red, peach, and different shades of each.  

The flowers are edible, but they don't bloom very long.  Before I could figure out the best use for the blooms, they wilted and faded away.  There are more buds, so I should have more flowers soon! 

Crazy for Cucumbers

Mitten has always enjoyed eating greens, such as lettuce and wheatgrass.  When I planted the Bibb lettuce, she would snack on it early in the morning.  But everything changed when I planted cucumber seeds. 

I ordered two kinds of cucumber seeds from the Burpee catalogue: traditional style cucumbers (in a smaller version suitable for container growing) and lemon cucumbers, that supposedly look like tennis balls, but taste like cucumber.  For whatever reason, the lemon cucumber seeds never sprouted, so I have no idea what they look like. But the traditional cucumbers grew like crazy.  And Mitten, in turn, went crazy for them. 

Mitten Waiting At The Door, Desperate To Get Out To Her Farm 

When I started the garden, she waited patiently until the alarm clock buzzed in the morning and then would accompany me outside.  Once the cucumbers sprouted, that ended.  Suddenly, Mitten demanded to go outside before the sun was up.  She started pawing my hair or tapping me on the shoulder; crying in my face; jumping around the bed. She was desperate to get outside to her cucumber plants. 

The ASPCA website indicated that cucumbers are non-toxic for cats, so although I didn't encourage this behavior, I couldn't figure out a way to stop it short of uprooting and throwing away the cucumbers altogether.  So instead, we let her indulge in her favorite snack.  She's started to let us sleep in a little bit in return. 

Mitten Enjoying A Morning Snack 

The cucumbers themselves are really interesting.  They start out very hard with sharp prickers on them.  As they grow, the skin starts to smooth out.  The tendrils from the vine also wrap around anything they can find, so we had to get a cage for the plant. They are hanging from the vine and certainly have one of the best views in all of South Beach.  Who ever heard of a cucumber with an ocean view?  

Eggplant Extravaganza!

Mitten Surveys the Eggplants' Progress

Mitten Farms features both white eggplants and purple Japanese "Ichiban" eggplants.  These have been plagued by a scourge that I only recently identified as white flies.  The situation is more or less under control now, thanks to some bright yellow traps and "organic" neem oil insecticide.  Fortunately, the flies did not effect the produce.  

 The eggplants started out with pretty purple flowers.  The flowers kept falling off, however, and I couldn't figure out what was wrong.  My gardening book advised that I should use a paint brush and pollinate the flowers myself.  This idea made sense -- Mitten Farms is on the sixteenth floor of a high rise condominium, after all. Not many bees here!

Eggplant Flower

After I figured out how to pollinate the flowers, baby eggplants started to grow! Overall, the white plant has produced many more eggplants than the purple plant.  The second purple plant is more successful and so far has yielded two eggplants.  We recently harvested the first round of eggplants and made a delicious eggplant parmesan with our bounty.  The eggplants were small but tender, and yielded a fairly large meal for the two of us.  More details to follow on the second round of eggplants! 

 

R.I.P., Salad Greens

Before talking about the success stories at Mitten Farms, I'll talk about the massive failures.  Although my gardening book warned that salad greens such as lettuce don't handle hot weather very well, I figured that they would grow since I planted them in the relatively cool Miami Fall weather.  I was wrong.  The Bibb lettuce and arugula that I purchased from Home Depot simply failed.  The Bibb lettuce never formed true heads and bolted.  Both the lettuce and the arugula tasted very bitter and were overall inedible.  And full disclosure: I also killed a tomato plant from Home Depot.  But enough wallowing, and onto the successes!

Welcome to Mitten Farms!

Mitten Farms is a small urban farming experiment, conducted on the balcony of a South Beach condo.  It started with the simple gift of a Calamondin tree (a citrus tree that grows small fruit that look like miniature oranges, but with a taste more similar to a lemon), and a bit of inspiration from an English container garden. 

My Calamondin Tree

With the consent of my very understanding partner in crime, Mr. D., I borrowed a book on container gardening from the public library and headed for Home Depot.  This blog will chronicle the triumphs, tribulations, and more of my attempt to grow vegetables on our balcony. 

Mitten With Her Cucumber Plant

Mitten Farms is named by my intrepid assistant, Livi. She wakes us up early every morning, demanding that we tend to the garden before work.  "Mitten" (as she is affectionately known) is also the mascot and CEO of Mitten Farms, and its biggest fan.  Her particular favorite are the cucumber leaves, a rare delicacy. 

I'm a bit behind on starting this blog (the original plants were purchased at the end of October) but I'll start at the beginning and chart their progress from the start.