It’s that time of year again when ripe’s roof deck starts calling out to us and it becomes difficult to concentrate on work. Heck, we could be up there sunning ourselves right now instead of writing this blog post. What’s wrong with our priorities…
We’ve had a really busy week, but Tomas still found time to do some work on our rooftop garden. As always we’ll be growing a bunch of super-spicy red peppers, but unfortunately that’s the only type of veggie that’ll survive up there – the squirrels eat everything else. Additionally, Tomas planted a whole bunch of ornamental grass and creeper seedlings he’s borrowed from some of our nice neighbors, so in a month or so we’ll be able to transplant them into our front yard. Below you’ve got some creeping red sedum along with a bunch of dwarf mondo grass.
And while we’ve been shut up indoors all winter, our compost pile has been busily turning our old apple cores and whatnot into rich, black soil. We left it alone a little too long in early spring, and some grass started to sprout in it (whoops), but it’s looking pretty good to us! Probably half of the compost is made up of old coffee grounds, so we’re wondering if our peppers are going to be strangely caffeinated this year…
That’s about it for this week – it’s been a busy one. A few quick notes: our junior designer posting is still active (so you can still apply if you like!), but we’re taking a break from updating the font popularity chart this week (see the previous weeks here and here). But for those interested, Akzidenz Grotesk has pulled into the lead, followed by Archer, Didot, Futura and Gotham. Tobias Frere-Jones is still dominating the designer field with 5 typefaces.
Also, Tomas is going to be judging the first ever AIGA GMU Design Battle next Thursday. It’s open to the public, so if you’d like to see some up and coming designers fight to the death with pixels and picas, we’d recommend checking it out! Say hello to Tomas if you see him!
PS. We need ideas for more edible plants to grow that squirrels won’t eat! We have some herbs going up there (rosemary and sage specifically) but we need some more ideas.
The squirrels leave my herbs alone (thyme, sage, basil, rosemary, oregano) and sweet bell peppers (although they may have been distracted by the tomatoes they DID eat.) Are you able to put up stakes and netting around your edible plants? If you have the room, do a squash, zucchini, pumpkin, or watermelon. You could also to a tripod out of stakes and grow peas or beans up it.
PS: I am jealous of your compost. I’d like to do one but my dogs would eat the refuse.
That is so awesome! I’m creating my first container garden ever this summer. I’ve heard of a few methods for keeping squirrels away…
- Scatter some treats around the plants to keep squirrels busy and out of the pots.
- Place large-ish rocks (not gravel) in the pot around the plants. Make sure they’re big enough that the squirrels can’t easily move them around. (This is only to be used for plants that have already broken the top soil)
- For plants that haven’t popped up yet, take some chicken wire and create a sleeve around the pot, closing off the top with twist ties.
I’ll let you know if I find any other methods this summer with my own garden. Good luck!
They say if squirrels can’t get it, they won’t eat it. Any way to create some sort of deterrent or enclosure? If you have a surplus of hot peppers this year, get the hottest ones you can, grind them up, boil in water, let it set for a few days and make some repellent.
We had some limited success keeping them away from our cannas.
Although in the end, they will win. They have more patience and we… well have other things to do.
Haha, yeah the squirrels went through our tomatoes as soon as they popped up a couple of years ago.
Squashes, melons and bell peppers are great ideas, we hadn’t thought of that! And chicken wire is probably a good idea, Amy. Thanks!
@Steve: Hmmm. That repellent could work. They certainly stay away from the peppers… Hopefully it doesn’t that end up making everything taste spicy?
I think its awesome that you have a rooftop garden! Although its about to be summer I have a solution for growing vegetables and whatnot in the winter! I found this on Ted talks. It’s a called a “Window farm” and it uses hydrophonics to allow year round growing in your window. It’s also really awesome because they don’t use soil, but liquid instead. I’ve always wanted to garden, but am freaked out by the bugs so window farming is a great alternative. For more on this check out: http://www.windowfarms.org/
i found these sedum plants about 2 months after i made my vegetable garden i don’t know what kind they are they have a pinkish-red stem with green oval leaves it doesn’t have any flowers on it yet but I’ve wondered where they seeds waiting in the dirt for me or did the deer poop them out see what i did was dug a big hole & got all the clay dirt out and added alot of cow poop and then i mixed the clay with the cow poop dirt and now my stuffs looking good but the deer wont leave it alone last year they left me with only 2 plants when i have planted 15teen watermelon & cantaloup plants and they are doing the same this year but anyways i was just needing some help finding out what kind of sedum this is i have i have looked for it and can’t find it oh & it folds up at night time
i don’t like hydroponic tomato’s it just taste like biting into something filled with water or any hydroponic foods i just don’t like them to me when you grow them in the ground they have more flavor but then when they grow it in water it takes almost all the flavor away and sting thats in the fruits & vegetables
[...] Circle. This is both a blessing and a curse: a blessing in that we’ve got a kickass roof deck and an all around cool space to work in, but a curse in that it’s an old (verging on [...]