urban gardening revisited

[Callaway]

Have you checked the plants for aphids?

The only kind of ant that would hurt the pepper plant that I can think of would be the leaf cutter ant, but sugar ants might be attracted to honeydew produced by aphids.

[garmonbozia]

I got home from a trip and found green bell peppers growing where the first few flowers were, and many more buds waiting to produce.  Alas, these plants are finally producing food.  The ants only seem interested when there's a new flower on the plant.

I have not checked for aphids.  I've been more concerned with my upstairs neighbor letting his dog piss on their balcony and drip onto mine.  The tomato plants and the maple tree aren't looking quite so good as the pepper plants.  However, within the next few days, I am moving into a duplex apartment with a fenced backyard.  That means: no upstairs neighbor, more direct sunlight, and access to flying creatures (bees, hummingbirds, bats, etc.) that act as pollinators.

[Callaway]

I got home from a trip and found green bell peppers growing where the first few flowers were, and many more buds waiting to produce.  Alas, these plants are finally producing food.  The ants only seem interested when there's a new flower on the plant.

I have not checked for aphids.  I've been more concerned with my upstairs neighbor letting his dog piss on their balcony and drip onto mine.  The tomato plants and the maple tree aren't looking quite so good as the pepper plants.  However, within the next few days, I am moving into a duplex apartment with a fenced backyard.  That means: no upstairs neighbor, more direct sunlight, and access to flying creatures (bees, hummingbirds, bats, etc.) that act as pollinators.

That's pretty gross for the neighbor to let his dog do that.

I think that peppers like more heat than tomatoes, so that might be part of the reason they are doing better. 

The new place sounds like it will be much better for gardening.  How big will your new back yard be? 

[garmonbozia]

1/4 acre.

[Callaway]

Wow, you could have a big garden if you wanted to.

[garmonbozia]

Well, I thought I heard them say 1/4 acre, but that just doesn't sound right.  Probably more like 1/10 acre.  It's a 900 square foot duplex, and the back yard of the model unit looked roughly the size of the apartment plus a little.

Whatever the case, at least it's got a yard.  Any yard is better than no yard.

[garmonbozia]

The move is complete, and the formerly "urban" (apartment balcony) garden is now in the dirt of a real backyard.  The maple tree (sapling) has shown signs of improvement with lots of new leaves that are a deep burgundy-red color when they first bud out, gradually fading to green.  The other plants all seem to have improved.  I thought the tomato plants had died, but they've got new growth branching off from growth I thought had died.  Some of the bell pepper plants are still in pots, now alongside the fence.  These have produced five peppers so far.  Tree frogs like to sit around on top of the peppers.  There are eight more bell pepper plants (yellow and orange) that are planted in the ground.  They're still sprouts, but I'm hoping they'll reach productive size before the end of summer.  The same with five habernero plants.  The soil here is very sandy.  I had to add some bagged soil atop when first planting.  Hopefully that's enough.

[Callaway]

That sounds good to me.  I guess you must be watering enough if the maple tree is putting on new growth and so are the tomatoes.

[garmonbozia]

We check every day to see if the plants need water.  It rains often (this being Florida in the summer), but even then it gets so hot that we go ahead and hose down the plants if it hasn't rained by the time I get home from work in the afternoon.  Also, despite the sandy nature of the soil, rainwater accumulates in spots during a rainstorm (and is quickly absorbed into the ground soon after).