See that sucker there? Suckers are secondary branches that grow in the joints of existing branches. Pinch ‘em off. Suckers take energy away from growing tomatoes. No tomatoes will form on sucker branches.

Allium is the name of a great genus of plants for container gardeners. “Allium” literally means “garlic” in Latin, but botanically speaking, it includes onions, chives, and ornamental flowers as well. They all grow from bulbs and all have grass-like or tubular leaves with an onion/garlic scent to them when you brush up against the leaves. Because of their bulbous nature, they tend to be able to survive a bit of neglect, great for beginners and lazy gardeners!

Here’s how to grow several different type of edible alliums on your patio, porch, balcony, roof top, or anywhere else you can stick a pot…

Chives

Photo by Full Chat

I find chives annoying to start from seed (they seem to take awhile to germinate, and will only germinate if the conditions are perfectly acceptable to their delicate sensibilities), so I always use plants bought from the nursery. Since they are perrenial, if you buys chives once, you pretty much have them for life. Even in cold climates where hard freezes will kill the leaves, the plant should come back in spring.

The plants themselves are very easy to care for. If you’re growing them in a pot by themselves, chose one a few inches taller and wider than the pot the plants were growing in at the nursery (a minimum of 8 inches tall and wide). They also make a great “filler plant” in larger, mixed containers.

Chives are happiest being watered whenever the soil dries out, but I have inadvertantly forgotten to water my plants for weeks and they perked up and were just fine when I gave them a drink. If you use chives regularly in your cooking, fertilize your plants once a month. If you don’t use them too often, every other month is fine.

Varieties to look for: The options are rather limited, you’ve got chives and garlic chives (flat leaves, white flowers, faint garlic taste).

Scallions

Photo by h-bomb

Scallions are usually just immature onions, though there is such a thing as a “bunching onion” which never develop a fat, onion bulb and are always eaten as a scallion. Growing scallions, bunching onions, and actual onions are all pretty much the same.

Scallions are easy to start from seed. You can start them inside about a month before your last frost and sow more seeds every several weeks for a staggered harvest. As the seedlings grow, if you mostly want the white part of the scallion (both parts are edible), mound up more soil around the base as the plant grows. This will blanch the base and force it to be white.

When your plants are ready to transplant outside, I’ve found windowbox shaped pots to be ideal. Scallions can be grown very close together (about two inches apart), so you can fit several rows of plants in a typical window box. Or, if you prefer, arrange them in concentric circles in a round pot. Their roots are relatively shallow, so anything 8 inches deep or more is fine.

Varieties to look for: I’m growing ‘Delicious Duo’ from Renee’s Garden at my office. They’re a nice mix between scallions with a white base and those with red-tinged bases. Botanical Interests sells an heirloom variety called ‘Italian Red of Florence’ that has a slightly bulbous, very deep red base.

Garlic, Green Garlic & Garlic Scapes

Photo by Joe Shlobotnik

Garlic is worth a try because you can grow more interesting varieties than what is easily available at the store. “Green garlic” sounds mysterious but it’s just the leaves of regular garlic, which you can cut off whenever you wish if you don’t plan on harvesting the bulbs below (it stresses the plant out too much for much of a garlic head to form). Garlic scapes are the flower stalks of hard neck varieties of garlic. They’re edible and delicious!

If it’s heads of garlic you’re aiming for, I’ve had the best results in long window boxes or planter boxes. Don’t plant garlic you buy at the regular supermarket because it has probably been treated with a chemical to prevent it from sprouting. You’ll find the most interesting varieties from mail order catalogs/websites, but organic varieties at farmers markets will also work. Plant the cloves 4 inches deep and 4 inches apart in fall (October for temperate climates, November-January for mild-winter climates). Be sure to put down a balanced fertilizer at the time of planting. Don’t let the soil completely dry out, but other than that, ignore them until the leaves start popping up in spring.

Once leaves start popping up in spring, keep the soil evenly moist and fertilize once a month. Your plants should be ready to harvest in June or July. Soft-neck varieties tell you they’re ready by flopping over. Hard-neck varieties straighten their curled scapes.

If you’d like green garlic, simply pop a few cloves of an organic garlic bulb you bought at the farmers market and starting in early spring, stick the cloves in any container that has room for them. Keep them well watered (but not soggy) and fertilize with a balanced fertilizer once a month. Harvest the leaves whenever you need a mild garlic flavor in something you’re cooking, they will come back for several more harvests.

Varieties to look out for: Chesnok Red is listed by Territorial seed as the best all-around variety for cooking, while Spanish Roja is said to be the favorite of garlic connoisseurs. Chinese Pink is an extra early soft-neck variety that you can start harvesting in May.

Onions

I don’t think onions are a good use of space on a balcony, they take a long time to grow and homegrown onions taste exactly like store-bought varieties, but if you insist on growing your own, I’ve already written about growing onions in a container garden.

Container Gardening A to Z will continue in two weeks with the letter B!

In case you haven’t heard, I am now a vermicomposter (how could you have missed it, every other word out of my mouth is pretty much about worms! ). I have been feeding them some of my kitchen scraps and it is interesting to see what they like eating and what they don’t. And trust me, there is definitely a preference. Onion peels don’t seem to be very popular. Here is a list of what worms do seem to like eating:

• Coffee grounds, including coffee filters
• Tea bags
• Most fruits and vegetables (though potato skins, onions, garlic, ginger and banana peels seem to take a long time to get eaten)
• Pasta
• Grains like oatmeal (with no milk)
• Shredded paper
• Shredded cardboard
• Dead flowers
• Egg shells (I wash mine and then crush them into small pieces before feeding them to my worms)

Do not feed your worms these things:

• Meat, poultry, fish, dairy
• Potato chips, candy, and oily foods
• Any part of a citrus fruit
• Plastic
• Rubber bands
• Sponges
• Aluminum foil
• Glass
• Dog or cat feces

Would you like to give vermicomposting a try? The Worm Factory 360 is a great choice for small gardens (like balconies, patios, rooftop gardens, etc). You can get 10% off by ordering it here: http://www.naturesfootprint.com/lifeonthebalcony

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I received the Worm Factory 360 for free from the manufacturer. Here is more information about my review policy.

I have been having so much fun with my own sempervivums (see my little mint box and picture frame) that I am thrilled to share this news: Arrowhead Alpines is offering to send one lucky person (in the U.S. who is at least 18 years old) six of their very own named sempervivum varieties. Keep reading for how to enter…

• Create a new Pinterest board and name it “I love sempervivums” (this is how I will find all the entries)
• Add this link to your board: http://www.arrowheadshopping.com/collections-124/sempervivum-collection-130/
• Add at least three other links that are about sempervivums (from whatever site you chose) to your board. Look for projects using sempervivums, informational articles about growing sempervivums, profiles of particularly beautiful semps. Whatever you like so long as it obviously relates to sempervivums.

If you are not already on Pinterest and would like to participate, leave a comment on this post and I will send you an invite.

I will pick my favorite board at  12pm Pacific time on April 13 to win a 6 plant collection of named sempervivums from Arrowhead Alpines. My primary deciding factor will be the number and quality of pins included in the board. Any boards with pins that are obviously not linked to the original source (i.e. linking to Google Images instead of linking to the actual website) will be disqualified. Also, you should know that it annoys me when people post things to Pinterest with a “.” for the entire description of the pin. I wouldn’t do that if you want to win.

Ready, set, GO!

If you’ve ordered a bunch of sempervivums from Arrowhead Alpines like I did, you need lots of things to do with all those little babies semps make. This was a totally fun and super easy little garden to make. I used a mint tin that I purchased at Trader Joe’s but if you’ve got an Altoid tin around, that would work just as well.

What You’ll Need:

• 6-10 small sempervivum “chicks”
• Metal breath mint tin
• Awl or nail
• Hammer
• Glue gun (optional)
• Approximately 1/2 cup of cactus potting mix

Like all projects that involve converting some sort of “trash” into a container garden treasure, you need to poke some holes in the bottom. I used an awl and hammer, but if you don’t have a hammer, a nail will do the trick. If you have a small piece of scrap wood handy, put it inside the tin and hammer the holes from the outside. The wood will help support the tin and prevent it from crunching inwards when you make the holes. If you don’t have any scrap wood, it will probably be fine, just try and hit the awl firmly and hard so that you don’t have to keep on hitting it over and over again.

I wanted the lid to my tin to stay open at a specific angle, so I squirted a little bit of glue from my hot glue gun into the hinges to hold them in place. You can skip this step if you’re not anal.

Next, fill the bottom of the tin completely with the cactus potting mix. Then take your sempervivum cuttings and arrange them however you’d like inside the tin. In a few weeks, your semps will have grown roots and hold themselves firmly in place.

This past Saturday I did a demonstration at the San Francisco Flower & Garden Show on vertical gardening. One of the things I demonstrated was how to make a succulent photo frame. As promised, here are the step-by-step instructions for those of you who weren’t able to make it to the show…

What You’ll Need:

• Sempervivum cuttings (I used Whirligig, Alone, 735 Belgium, and Korump from Arrowhead Alpine’s named forms collection)
• A few scraps of chicken wire
• Shadowbox-style photo frame (I bought this small one at the dollar store)
• Cactus potting soil
• Sphagnum moss
• Staple gun
• Gloves

First things first. Don’t be an idiot (like me) and forget your gloves. That is, unless you enjoy scraping your precious little fingers on chicken wire.

Now down to the actual work. You start by stapling a piece of chicken wire that is a little larger than your frame to the inside of the frame. This will make a nice front face for your frame.

Next you make a little sandwich. Not one you’d want to eat, but your sempervivums will enjoy it. Layer sphagnum moss down on the inside of your frame, right on top of the chicken wire you just stapled. Then pack in as much of the cactus potting mix as you can. Layer another bit of sphagnum moss down. The moss is preventing the soil from falling out, but still allows water to drain away. Finally, staple a second pieve of chicken wire (this one should be slightly smaller than your frame) to the back.

Now you’re ready for the fun part. Collect your sempervivum cuttings. Since sempervivums make so many little offsets (the “chicks”), it is easy to just clip a few off (enough to fill your frame) without even taking the mother plant (the “hen”) out of the pot. Be sure to leave a little bit of the umbilical cord on the cutting, as this will help you stick your plant into the frame and keep it there until roots form.

As sempervivums grow, they often create a shaggy layer of dead leaves at their base. Gently pull those off so that you can get the plant flush with the chicken wire/photo frame. The photo on the left is the before and the right is the after.

Using a pen or some other similar shaped object, poke a little hole into the sphagnum moss and put the sempervivum’s umbilical cord into the hole. I found that gently twisting the plant back and forth helped it get situated.

Continue to fill in with more plants until you’ve completed your frame. Let it lay flat for two weeks so that the roots can develop before hanging it upright.

In honor of the NCAA’s Sweet Sixteen which begins today, I thought we container gardeners could have a sweet sixteen competition of our own. A SEMPERVIVUM Sweet Sixteen. We’re going to have brackets just like the NCAA tournament, except our brackets will pit different varieties of Sempervivum against one another. You all will vote for plants at each round, with the winners advancing to the elite eight, final four, and ultimately, the 2012 championship.

Everyone knows Sempervivums, right? They’re the hardy succulent that almost anyone can grow, even if you live some where with real winters. Sempervivums are hardy to zone 4. Commonly they’re called “Hens and Chicks” because a single plant will soon surround itself with lots of little baby plants.

So what do you say? Game on?! Be sure to vote in all 8 match ups…

 Take Our Poll

Take Our Poll

Take Our Poll

Take Our Poll

Take Our Poll

Take Our Poll

Take Our Poll

Take Our Poll

If you’re a fan of Life on the Balcony’s Facebook page then you probably know that I recently bought some neat sempervivums from Arrowhead Alpine Nursery. I have several projects in mind for these succulents, but the first is this photo frame, filled with little semps. I am going to be a horrible tease though, and say that you have to come to my talk at the San Francisco Garden Show this Saturday (Mar 24) at 11am to find out how I made it. I’ll post instructions on Sunday for those of you who are too far to make it to the show.

1. Whirligig
2. Alone
3. 735 Belgium
4. Korump

UPDATE: Congratulations Anna, you’re the winner!

Now that I have my own worms composting away on my balcony, I think everyone (okay, “almost” everyone) should have worms composting their food scraps and junk mail too. Just call me your friendly vermivangelist. Get it? OK. Sorry for all the bad worm jokes these past few posts. But I have exciting news!

The publisher of The Earth Moved by Amy Stewart and creator of the Worm Factory 360 are generously giving away a book and vermicomposting bin to one lucky reader! Here’s what you have to do to win:

1. Read either There are Worms on My Balcony and It’s All Amy Stewart’s Fault or 1000 Red Wiggler Worms are Doing Their Thing in My Worm Factory 360.
2. Share a tip or factoid that you learned from either of those posts in the comments section of THIS post. Only comments on this post will be counted.
3. If you share something from both posts, you can get a bonus entry into the contest.
4. Enter before Thursday, March 22 at 11:59pm Pacific time.

You must be over 18 and have a shipping address in the United States to win. Good luck!

In addition to receiving Amy Stewart’s book, The Earth Moved, I also received a Worm Factory 360 to review. Now you know why her book re-launch is to blame for the fact that I own so many Red Wiggler worms.

I have to say, it is incredibly fun to share worm facts (I have been using the hashtag #WormFact on Twitter), especially since they seem to really gross out my husband and mom. Beyond taking the opportunity to slip in some worm-related humor into my conversations, vermicomposting is incredibly good for the environment (you can feed your worms your junk mail!) and for your garden. And it is totally doable on the smallest balcony, or even without a balcony at all.

If you were reading my review of The Earth Moved closely, you noticed an interesting factoid about worm castings (“casting” is a nice way of saying “poop”). Amy spoke with professional growers who were able to get their plants ready for sale 1-2 weeks quicker by mixing worm castings into their potting mix. That’s pretty awesome, when you think about it. I would imagine that not many organic fertilizers could knock off 20-30% of the time it takes to grow out a plant. Even if you’re not planning a commercial growing operation on your balcony or patio, using worm castings as a fertilizer means bigger, healthier plants. Score!

What’s even more awesome for regular old container gardeners like you and me is that worm castings don’t smell, and you can “farm” worms in a very small amount of space. This means that you can make your own castings continually, without spending any money after you buy your compost bin and worms.

I don’t have a ton of experience with vermicomposting (read: I have all of 2 days of experience at the time of this post), but I would like to share a couple of the things I like about the Worm Factory 360. First, it has a nice flat top so I can put a potted plant on top to conceal it a bit. OK, that’s kind of a silly benefit, here are my real reasons for liking the Worm Factory 360:

• It is really easy to put together. You don’t need any tools and it comes with a guidebook that IKEA should study for ways to improve their instructions. There were step-by-step photos and drawings, which helped me assemble the composting bin in less than 10 minutes.
• The bin is made up of nesting trays so that the finished worm castings are in the bottom tray, and the worms are encouraged to wriggle up into the upper trays where there is better tasting (to them) stuff to eat. This means that you don’t have to pick out worms from your castings before using it in your container garden.
• The bin has a pretty small footprint, so you don’t need to use up a ton of your balcony space with your worm composting bin. And since there is no bad odor coming from the bin, you could even keep the worms inside you apartment in a closet or cabinet in your kitchen.
• If your family needs to compost lots of stuff, you can buy additional trays to make room for more material and worms. They just stack on top of what you already have, so you don’t need to dedicate additional floor space just to expand your composting operation.
• It comes with tools! In the box there was a thermometer (itlooks like the sort of thing you’d stick in a turkey to test if it is done roasting), a rake, perlite, coir, shredded newspaper, and a sprinkler tray (which is handy for mixing up some worm tea). Basically, the only thing that does not come with the Worm Factory 360 are the worms (for obvious reasons) and the material you want to compost.

One of the best parts of vermicomposting (so far, after only two days), is meeting the interesting people who grow worms for sale. You can use the website FindWorms.com to locate a worm farmer near you. I found a lady near my office that was raising them, but she didn’t answer the phone, and I called and chatted with a few other “characters” before deciding on a guy who splits his time between dog grooming, jewelry making, and worm farming. When I stopped into his little store front, he insisted on showing me his worm bin, and as he dug around in there, he found bits of his last few lunches and used them as a teaching tool to educate me on what can and cannot be fed to worms. I am kind of glad that you have to go and visit one of these establishments to get your worms, it’s an experience I never would have had if worms were included in the box.

I do have one tip that I can pass along at this early stage in my vermicomposting career. Don’t freak out if a few of your worms appear as though they are trying to escape the bin shortly after you put them in there. If you followed the instructions on preparing their bedding properly, and it is not too wet in your bin, they are probably just a little bit annoyed about being jostled around in your car and then being unceremoniously dumped into your bin. You can leave the top off and shine a light on the bin to convince them to get to work on composting and give up their dreams of escape. Since red wigglers don’t like being above ground in the sunshine, this will encourage them to burrow into the bedding and settle down. I didn’t want to leave the lid off because I was convinced that I would wake up to find a worm stampede leaving my composting bin, but after about 12 hours, all my worms had started digging in to the bedding material and I even saw some eating the broccoli I put in there for them.

Here is a video about the Worm Factory 360. You can zoom ahead to 1:19 since you already know about the benefits of composting in general.

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I received the Worm Factory 360 for free from the manufacturer. Here is more information about my book review policy.