time warp

[alenxa_classic]

I made cinnamon raisin toast this morning and nearly went back in time. Combine that scent with coffee and you have what my grandparents' house used to smell like in the morning. I don't know why it hasn't hit me before; I think it's the not wanting to go to work I've been having since yesterday, combined with the knowledge that cooking up the scent on my own is as close as I'm ever going to get anymore. The Whole Foods organic cinnamon raisin swirl bread is really uncanny. I draw the line at brewing Folgers, though.

Then the mocha latte yogurt I brought for a snack brought back memories of cramming for the AP English study guides and starting to write APK. There was this flavored water out at the time called Aqua Vie, and it was available for cheap at Pic-N-Save so my mom let me stock up. I got attached to the coffee flavor despite the product's tendency to sort of sting the throat when swallowing. I'd be typing and reading and making notes at the computer for the 8 or so hours my mom eagle-eyed me for each day, and swigging a bottle of the stuff as I worked. Sometimes I'd manage to sneak one into the bath too, along with my pink 3-subject and a pencil. The yogurt tang is strangely reminiscent of that little acid burst from the water. And I already owe scads of writing due to Firefly. Maybe I need to find a new brand of coffee-flavored water.

I think I may plant eggplant again next year just for the gorgeous purple flowers. One plant has one open and the other has two, and each has about four more that aren't open yet. I'm tempted to leave them all on the plants just to look at them, but I know it'll be better for the plant to pinch off about half of them, especially considering they're in pots.

The strawberries are thriving too. I've never grown them before, so I did an experiment with the two runners the plant had when I transplanted it, bringing one down through the soil to a balcony and bringing the other over the edge of the pot. As of Tuesday, the buried runner has rooted itself in the balcony and the looped-over one is shooting out another. The main plant up top has put out three flowers, one of which is now a 1-cm green-yellow point of a baby berry, and the other two of which are at different stages between petal loss and berry emergence.

The cherry tomato has one, count 'em, one cluster of flowers, but it's hanging on to them very well. I don't think I can really expect more from it, considering its traumatic background. And with that consideration, it's doing better than two of the yellow tomatoes, which can't seem to set their flowers. Every day I see more buds, but I also find withered broken-off blossoms sitting on the leaves. The other two are slightly better, but only one of them is really thriving. It's about half again as big as the next best of its littermates and twice as big as the most pathetic, and though it's losing flowers too, it's keeping over half of them. The next best is only batting about .450 on that front.

The Better Boy has gotten tall enough that I've put a stake in the pot, but I haven't had to tie it up yet. The green tomato it had when I got it is now at about 3 cm diameter and growing steadily. It hasn't lost a flower yet. I'm thinking next year I'll be getting my veggies at Mainly Seconds.

The herbs are loving life. I've discovered that my criterion for choosing parsley is not quite realistic: flatter leaves on a bunch of curly parsley aren't a sign of it not being fresh, just an indicator that the plant was more mature. I think I'm going to have to research whether you can divide parsley, or I'll never have enough for a decent batch of tabbouli. I've been pinching the centers out of the basil, and it's been cooperating by bushing out instead of getting leggy. Which means a new pot soon, but I've been wanting to try making pesto, so I was hoping for that. (I may even get enough leaves to put zehntaur's long-dormant storage jar to use.) Speaking of pots, I wish I'd planted the mint in a smaller one so I could have put it in the hanging container, as it's creeping attractively over the edges. The oregano is just sort of sitting in the hanging pot like an aromatic Chia Pet. Maybe I'll get out my old spool of hemp twine and the $3 bag of wood beads from Sterling Art and exercise my rusty macrame skills.

Comments

[maldis.livejournal.com]

Out of curiosity, how much sun does your balcony get, and which direction on the compass does it face? (there are so many little turns I have to take to get there I can't figure out the direction in my head without more effort than I'm willing to make right before bed)

[alenxa.livejournal.com]

I'm not really certain which way it faces. I think it's westish, but by what I don't know. It gets enough sun to give ivy a fatal sunburn. The weird bit is that the yellow tomatoes say full sun, but the one most in the shade is doing the best. Go fig.

Anecdotally, last year, the "Patio Hybrid" tomatoes I planted did just fine until a huge spider anchored its web to the overhang, the door handle, one of the pots, and the broom (!), effectively hemming in a suddenly arachnophobic me. By the time it had moved on, the poor tomatoes were long dead. This year we have the broom inside.

[kelson.livejournal.com]

Southwest. It faces the 5, which runs at a roughly 45-degree angle in our area.

[maldis.livejournal.com]

Hmmmmmmmm. Have you tried moving the plants that need more sun toward the corner that gets its light predominately from the South, and the plants that need less sun toward the corner that gets light from the West? (I don't know that it would make that much difference anyway since your balcony's pretty exposed and there's probably no significant difference in the amount of light from each direction at any given spot, but it may still be worth trying)