As has been the case for the past few weeks, things have really been growing quickly. One of the neatest developments, at least in my opinion, is that the thunbergia and the scarlet runner beans have finally met in the middle of the balcony. It is rather unfortunate that I may have to take both sets of plants down if the weather is as bad as forecast. I guess I can at least be satisfied that my plan did work.
The thunbergia have really been growing quite quickly for the past few days. Though the vine-like aspects of the plant are now clear, I still haven't seen any sign of flowers (probably in excruciating detail).
The morning glory plants are another of types of plants that have really been thriving these past few weeks, though still without signs of flowers. I kind of wish that I had known how well this would do as I think I would have planted them instead of the thunbergia and been much further ahead. I guess I will know this for next year.
My radishes seem to have rather impressive foliage, but I am not sure that any of them are really developing much underground. I imagine that this lack of development is due to both overcrowding and an insufficiently deep pot. I really should have know that radishes aren't an appropriate container garden vegetable. To be far to myself, I guess I already knew this but happened to have the seeds on hand so I thought I would give it a shot, even if only to have the foliage.
The scarlet runner bean in the planter as well as those in the pots on the balcony wall have been doing quite well recently. The plants in the pots, which are a few weeks older, have been blooming regularly for a few weeks now and have started to produce beans on a pretty regular basis.
A few days ago I was able to harvest a few of the beans. They were pretty tasty.
The peas have now been producing peas for a number of weeks, and are continuing to do so at a pretty steady rate. I imagine that I will be able to harvest a few more pea pods before the plants succumb to frost.
The broccoli and cauliflower plants (I don't know which one these are) seem to be doing well if height and leaf production are appropriate indicators of plant development. Unfortunately, I haven't yet seen evidence of consumable components, but I hope these appear soon. For some reason these plants seem to be victimized by leaf eating insects/bugs. In some cases almost the entirety of the leaf is consumed overnight.
The watermelon plants have taken off in the past week or two. I think that I may even have uncovered a few things that may be the early stages of blooms. Unfortunately it is pretty clear that these plants won't produce viable watermelons before they will have to be moved inside for the fall (and even then they may remain unproductive).
The banana plant has continued to produce new large leaves at a pretty regular rate. Furthermore, the new pups are also coming along nicely. Hopefully I will get around to transplanting the pups in the near future as I get the sense that they are starting to run out of room in their present locations.
The tomato plants are now quite tall and unwieldy. I have no idea what to do when them as they keep collapsing and breaking their stalks. The only thing I have managed to do is wedge them in corners, as can be seen here, so that they can at least gain some support from the walls. Given their size I am particularly worried about how they will fare during the expected hurricane.
Amazingly, through all of the collapses and set-backs, the fruit on most of the tomato plants continues to grow. I think that in total there must be close to 2 dozen tomatoes at various stages. The smallest are only a few millimeters across while some of the largest are approaching the size of a small plum.
My oldest pepper plant has grown quite tall in the past few weeks. While a number of flowers have developed, all have fallen off before turning into fruit. Clearly something is wrong with this scene but I don't quite know what to do. I am hoping that the other pepper plants that I have won't have the same problem.
Shortly after these photos were taken I moved a number of the plants indoors to the plant shelf in the living room. Much to my surprise, I was able to fit most of the plants on the top two shelves. Hopefully this temporary move will save them from the damage that they might otherwise sustain were they to be left outside for the hurricane.
Hopefully I remember to water all of these plants.
In case you are curious, this is what the balcony looks like now. Only a few of the plants remain. Sadly, I am expecting that most of the plants that do remain will end up either wrecked by the hurricane, or that I will have to cut them down if the storm gets bad.
I will let you know what happens.
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