Strawberries and Cereal Boxes -- Spring Garden Weekly Update 1

Today is April 11, let's take a look outside.

UPSTAIRS

I will start with the right side image first. As you may recall, I planted some corn, pole beans, and zucchini in the far bin. Turns out that the corn didn't grow tall enough prior to bean germination. This is going to create a space problem as the beans have nothing to climb up yet. I might consider thinning them out and replanting once the corn is about 6 inches tall. The zucchini is slowly chugging along, both are starting to grow their first true leaves.

Corn, beans, zucchini (The hole in the middle was a test of a vacation watering system)

 Bin 2 is supposed to be Swiss chard and bush beans. Only 2 of the beans have sprouted. The chard has come up, but several died yesterday due to the heat. I will consider replanting or transplanting different plants to replace them.

The sad state of affairs this bin is in

Bin 3 has my snow peas and some yellow bush beans. I am impressed with the germination rate of both, considering they were 20 cent seed packets. I removed the irrigation line from the bin because it wouldn't stop thrashing around when I needed to move the bins. In turn, I threw in some more seeds to fill the void where the pipe was. I expect great things from this bin.

Growing up so quickly

To the left side of the balcony: My bean bins haven't done too much lately, so I am not going to discuss them too much. A few of the radishes and beans came up, but the original variety of green bean I bought proved to have too poor of a germination rate.
My lettuce in soil is doing really well. I have 2 plants with giant leaves growing on them. The garlic has more shoots, but isn't too exciting to watch. My cherry tomato plants are also growing larger, nearly 6 inches tall.

Lettuce, Tomato, Garlic, etc

My winter crops are almost done producing. My pea plants are producing their last pods before they die. The Bok Choy is still flowering, and should end up dying soon so I can collect the seeds. My new crop of cucumbers is making its way along too. My biggest one is one I planted in a hydroponic solution. We will see  how the soil grown ones compare to it.

Peas, Bok Choy, Cucumber

Strawberry plant has given me a few berries already. I have harvested 3 from one of the plants so far, with 2 more on the way. Not too bad.

I picked 2 of these today

I tried to imitate the cereal box, but their berry is much larger than mine

So that is the upstairs garden, let's look at the hydroponic system downstairs. I have really nothing to compare it too, since I only planted these in the bins less than a week ago, so I'll only share photos as a baseline.

Lettuce

Cucumbers

Eggplant, Ace 55 tomato, and Swiss Chard

I will be updating again later on this month as things grow larger.

Read next week's update