2009 First harvest
Compare to last year, this year's first harvest is two weeks late! I didn't expect to see any eggplants until much later because of the crappy weather we've had the whole season. My japanese eggplants have been doing exceptionally well, I have two eggplants in one Earthbox and each plant has at least 5 eggplants in different sizes. It's best to harvest eggplants when the skin is shiny otherwise the skin will be too tough.
I wanted to make an Asian spicy eggplant dish, so I got two chilies from the Thai dragon pepper plant. I knew it was too soon to harvest the chilies because it's best to let the peppers develop the spicy seeds a little longer to get the maximum scoville count! These peppers were not spicy enough. It's fun to pop fresh peppers in my mouth right from the plant! But only for now when the peppers are still young, I dare not to do that for the older peppers! If you're interested to grow peppers, take a look at the Organic Gardening article about techniques and tips of growing different kinds of peppers.
Earthbox update
Back in May I bought two Earthboxes, in one of them I have two types of tomatoes (Sprite and Siberian), the other Earthbox I have two Japanese eggplants. Despite the amount of rain we've had in the past couple of months, I'm happy to report that all of them are doing really well and thriving. As you can see from the pictures below, the tomatoes are about six feet tall with lots of tomatoes (still green at the moment). Eggplants are also growing strong with about 10 eggplants in total.
Overall I'm very satisfy with the Earthbox. It has made the watering very easy and you don't have to worry about over-watering--when you see water coming out from the spout on the side that means enough. Also, no fertilizer is needed during the season except at initial planting time. We've had a couple of hot and humid days and I had to water them everyday but most of the time I've been watering it every other day. The only thing I'd like to change is the tomato cage. I was trying to save some money and bought the cheap steel tomato cage. One day we had a really severe thunderstorm with wind gust up to 60 mph, the tomato cage tipped over and almost broke the plant in half. Now I have a twist tie to secure the cage against the deck railings.
Compare to last year's Celebrity tomato planted in a normal container, these plants in a Earthbox definitely look more healthy and produces more fruits. The Sunset Magazine blogs about the Earthbox and compared it against a tomato plant grown in a normal pot. The writer talks about how she was a skeptic at first and became a convert. Take a look at Confessions of an Earthbox convert.
From this to this:
Sprite tomato on the left, Siberian tomato on the right:
Two Japanese eggplants in one Earthbox side by side:
Plant of the year 2009 – Nicotiana
The National Garden Bureau has named Nicotiana the plant of the year. Nicotiana is also called the tobacco plant. It's very easy to start the seeds, I didn't get these seeds until a few weeks after the last frost date, so I just sow the seeds directly outdoors. The seeds are very fine, so when you plant make sure you mix it with the top 1-2 inches of the soil, this way the seeds don't get blown away by the wind.
Nicotiana is new to me as they're not normally available in the regular neighborhood nurseries. What caught my attention about this plant is they have a very sweet scent, long blooming, drought tolerant, and takes full sun. These seeds were won from a container gardening tips contest by Life on the Balcony.
