Balcony Update

Just an update on our balcony garden. The bell pepper is blooming again (although it's still covered in aphids), and the eggplant had an open flower most of last week (it too, has aphid problems, though.) The Roma tomato has little green egg-shaped tomatoes all over the top of it, and the Patio variety is blooming like crazy. We've harvested several more tomatoes from the Cherry in the hanging basket, and the green beans are slowly maturing (we had one in our salad the other evening with dinner.) Oh, and the baby birds have turned into awkward...toddlers? We can see them poking their heads up over the edge of the hanging basket as they wait for their parents to bring them food. Cute, but ugly little things.

Well, I just went out to snap a picture of the little green Romas, and what did I find? A baby Gypsy Bell Pepper! Awesome. I hope we have that kind of good luck with the Eggplant, too.

Eggs & Early Harvest/Progress Report

Today, as I stood on our plastic folding table to water the hanging cherry tomato, I spotted at least two eggs in the Finch nest. I couldn't quite see the interior of the entire nest, so there are probably more than that. I wish I could've taken a picture, but lately it's been a rare event that the mother leaves the nest and she is only gone for maybe a minute at a time, so I had to be sneaky-quick. It's difficult to get good pictures of her sitting on the nest because the hanging basket is framed with sky and extremely backlit, but I'll try next time I spot a good Finch photo-op.

As for our other veggies, we are still fighting the good fight against aphids. The Roma tomato has several blossoms on it, and the Patio variety has some buds. We've already gotten several (3 or 4?) ripe tomatoes off the hanging cherry, but they were a bit mealy and not terribly flavorful. We picked a small handful of Sugar snap Peas, but they were fibrous since it's getting downright late in the year for spring snap peas… Oh! And my fiancé spotted a baby bean the other day. The eggplant has put up another set of leaves (a good thing, since it took the first wave of aphid damage), but the Bell Pepper still seems to be struggling due to aphids. We soap spray them with a mixture of peppermint castile soap and water (this is my favorite kind to use) every chance we get, and it seems to be helping some.

Carpodacus mexicanus, 5 1/2"

Common Name: House Finch

"Nest of twigs and grasses, placed in shrub, vine, hanging planter,"—aha!—"or birdhouse. Eggs: 2-6, bluish white with speckles; Incubation peridod: 12-16 days, Time to fledging: 11-19 days, Broods per year: 1-3."

"Originally from West, expanding range in East; often build nests in hanging outdoor planters."

Stokes, Donald & Lillian. Beginner's Guide to Birds: Eastern Region. Singapore: Little, Brown and Company, 1996.

Excitement & Updates

So we had an absolutely gigan-tormous storm yesterday evening. The sky got this nasty shade of green, and the finches were nowhere to be seen for several hours. I tied an extra piece of string around the Roma and its stake so it wouldn't get damaged in case of high winds. The clouds were quite spectacular—although we didn't get any hail here (or for that matter…much wind or rain), there were lots of people not too far away that got pummeled.

And the verdict is in! The cute little finch couple is not just looking for eats. They are building a nest. We've decided to not try to discourage them. I considered it (for ease of watering the tomato and harvesting, etc.), but when I took the hanging basket down and saw the little pieces of hair that they had so carefully collected and arranged…needless to say I didn't have the heart!

Oh, and did I mention that we have things ripening? Several of the cherry tomatoes in the hanging basket are ripening (please don't eat them liitle finches…), as are some sugar snap peas. And the bell pepper and bush beans are blooming. We've been fighting the good fight against a horde of aphids in our little balcony garden, but it looks like the cukes—which were hit hardest—are recovering nicely.

Update and Wildlife, too!

So here's an update on our veggies: everything is growing very well! It looks like there are some flower buds beginning to form on the Gypsy Bell Pepper (I have to wonder—isn't it a little early for that?) which is very exciting! Also, the cherry tomato that is in a hanging basket (the farmer's market one) has fruit set, and they're getting bigger every day. Only problem is—it's so darned root-bound that it dries out every single day, since the entire pot consists of nothing but a net of extremely fine roots. However, we've been watering it every day, and it seems to be doing fairly well.

In other news, apartment living bring some interesting perks. On the light outside our front door, we have a nesting pair of Barn Swallows. We can't yet tell if there are any occupants (eggs or baby Barn Swallows) of the nest, but the adults are very attentive. Every time we open our door and the swallows are out there, they swoop, and then perch a safe distance away on our kitty-corner neighbor's light. They're definitely keeping a very watchful eye on the nest. It's so cool to hear them chirp and chortle to each other in the evenings as they settle in right outside our apartment. Of course, the one drawback is that we are getting quite a pile of Swallow droppings on our front door mat. But I certainly feel that it's worth it to be able to observe these beautiful birds. They have fascinating habits, too. For instance, they seem to pop in and out to check on their nest throughout the day (in between they are out catching bugs) and sometimes as many as three at once will fly up our hallway to the nest.