A few weeks ago I went to City Peoples with a coworker post-workday. We both had a little problem. And it looked a lot like this:

His name was Spot. But he’s been replaced. By 5000 ladybugs, each one more aptly named Spot than Spot was. Reminiscent of Too Many Daves by Dr. Seuss, if you will.

I bought my 5000 Spots for somewhere around the ring of $7 I believe, though truthfully I don’t remember. Definitely not more than that.

Most of them were hiding behind the cardboard label or in that nest in the middle.

Carrying this was not easy, you can see their little legs poking out of the bag.

I took my little guys home, and prepared them a lounge amongst my plants in case my aphids were not to their tastes. Their home was a paper towel soaked in sugar water, every ladybug’s favorite. I released them at dusk per the instructions, shaking them out on my plants like seeds.

In the end, I didn’t really notice a difference. And my little bugs only stayed around for a few days. You’re welcome neighborhood for bringing a ladybug colony to our block. It certainly was entertaining while it lasted!

More pictures are viewable HERE. They are photos taken by my coworker of her ladybug release, she has quite a few more photos than I do. Mine came out too blurry.

By the way, all three of my tomato plants have tomatoes! Though none are ripe yet. The Totems are doing the best by far, and the plant is the most compact. So far I highly recommend it as a container tomato.

My patty pan squash plant is rebelling. I knew it would, it grew up so fast and started producing before it was ready. Poor squash.

I have two patty pan squash plants on my balcony. One is smaller but sort of producing. I say sort of because it does have squash on it, but none of them are turning from green to yellow and they come off looking like this inside.

Fail.

They’re not even shaped like pretty patty pans should be. I thought I might be over watering, so I stopped for a few days. Didn’t seem to have an effect. On the underside of the leaves appear to be teeny tiny little black bugs, though they don’t seem to be eating holes in the leaves. I sprayed them with some organic bug spray, but nada happened. Nada. Hmmmm.

The other squash plant that isn’t as sickly as the rebellious one has a little patty pan growing on it finally, and it actually looks patty pan shaped! Here’s hoping that it keeps growing. I’ll baby that thing to death. These squash plants have to earn their keep, they’re taking up a good portion of my precious balcony space.

In other garden news, my lettuce was attacked by this:

I call him Spot.

He’s about an 1/8th of an inch long and reproduces more than bunnies. He is now deceased, but his children keep living on. They have all but killed my lettuce, though it’s sadly well on its way. If anyone has any tips to get rid of Spot’s offspring, be my guest.

I have already tried soapy water, Safer organic bug spray, and manually removing them. No luck. They live on.

Back to the trenches!

P.S. 2 of 3 tomatoes plants have little green tomatoes on them. Hurray!

My little balcony garden has recently become quite productive in the color green. An abundance of green. Yet I am lacking produce as of yet. It’s not easy being green, you know?

The only harvest I have had is of my bok choy, which grew much more rapidly than every other plant. I’ll probably plant another one in the now vacant pot. The one I am currently pulling leaves off of has teeny little white bugs on it, but there is no damage to the plant so I figure it’s alright (but I put it in a corner away from the other plants, just in case).

My balcony garden:

• Patty Pan Squash x2
• Kale x3
• Strawberries
• Bush Early Girl tomatoes x2 (not as early as they claim, though probably due to the fault of the slow start on summer in Seattle)
• Other tomatoes that I don’t know what they are
• Butter lettuce (and a few other lettuces)
• Arugula
• Cucumber (some determinate variety)
• Lavendar
• Basil
• Mint
• Variety of peppers (banana, jalapeño, etc.)
• Spinach

I also attempted to grow teeny round carrots, which started out great but all of a sudden they all died. Bell peppers and some herbs also didn’t make it past seedlings. My chives never even sprouted, but the seeds were old so I will excuse them for being absent.

What I have learned about balcony gardening:

• Stick your finger in the soil and if it feels pretty damp and moist, it doesn’t need watered.
• Excessive wind bothers some plants, I shield mine with larger plants and it seems to please them.
• When transferring an indoor plant to an outdoor plant, “harden” it by placing it outside during the day and inside at night so it isn’t shocked by the temperature change.
• Today I learned that  tomatoes and cucumbers don’t grow well together. And I’ve had my cucumber sandwiched between two large tomato plants all this time. Looks like we’ll have to do a little switcheroo.
• Be sure that your plants are pollinated so that they will produce. I’m not sure how many bees make it to my balcony, I never see them. So I take a little make up brush and lightly go from flower to flower and pollinate them myself. I’ve also considered getting some bee attracting plants. Or just opening up a can of coke and leaving it around the plants.
• It takes 3 pitcher fulls to water my entire garden about every other day since it started getting hot out.
• If your plants look wilty but you’ve been watering them every day and it’s not scorching hot out, you are over-watering. Set the watering can down before you drown the poor things.

If you are a balcony gardener, I would love any tips you have or favorite plants that you grow.

*Please forgive my grainy photography, my little point and shoot only goes so far.

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