I spent some time gardening on my roof yesterday. Apparently my landlord is going to do some work on the actual roof today, and I still had old soil spread out to dry that needed cleaning up, plus lots of seeds to plant and new compost to use, NYC Paydirt, from the Lower East Side Ecology Center. It was such a lovely few hours. Sunny, with little sprinkles of rain. The cats scampering around.
Since its on a roof, everything is in pots and containers. Yesterday I planted cat grass, Moon Flowers, Morning Glories, Catnip, Snap Dragons, some kind of runner bean vine, and Bachelor Buttons all from seed. We'll see how they do. (An aside: I noticed this morning that the new Illustration Friday subject is Seed. How perfect! ) I'm really hoping to have lots of leafy vines to wind up the fencing and over the new chicken wire we put up to keep the cats in. But wouldn't it look lovely?
I also have basil and four little tomato plants growing in one pot and two ornamental grasses my mother gave me last year. They looked amazing and huge last summer and I'm really hoping they do just as well this year. The potato vines look a bit sad so far, but hopefully they'll catch on. The tarragon and mint came back from last year. Which is funny because I assumed they were annuals? But that was a nice surprise. In fact, they're doing so well it was time to pinch some off.
That meant mint and tarragon in the breakfast oatmeal this morning!
According to my favorite gardening site, You Grow Girl, "lightly brushing your hands against tomato leaves stimulates a growth hormone in the plant encouraging radial (aka stockier) growth." Isn't that nice? I have to go pet my tomatoes.