Living high up in a condo unit means I don’t have any traditional gardening space. I’ve managed to maximise what little outdoors space I have. For example, this urban jungle sits on a piece of wood which lays over an outside aircon unit. Although I call it an urban jungle, it’s really more of an urban farm!
This page documents the progress of the jungle. New plants are being added regularly and the layout is changing quite frequently depending on which plants grow tall(e.g Pole Sitao) and which require a little more room to the side (e.g Squash).
Some of the plants were started from seeds under fluorescent lighting while others were just started outside.
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Time Line
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19th Nov 2009 – This is the beginning of the urban jungle. Right now the pots are just placed outside on an aircon unit. |
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22nd Nov 2009 – The jungle is expanding although still not very green. Space is becoming limited! |
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28th Nov 2009 – The jungle is starting to look a bit greener! |
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30th Nov 2009 – I managed to find a piece of wood which fits into the space very well, I’ve now got more room and the jungle has expanded! |
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8th Dec 2009 – The jungle is coming along.. |
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11th Dec 2009 – The squash leaves are really starting to get big. The leaves of the Pole Sitao had previously wilted a little, they appear to be okay now. |
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12th Dec 2009 – A night shot of the urban jungle. You can see I’ve rearranged some of the plants and the addition of another tray. The basil in the new tray was previously growing in plastic bottles, hence why those at the edge are having problems standing up. |
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14th Dec 2009 – The squash plants are getting a bit greedy with space. Their big leaves are trying to take over the jungle! |
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21st Dec 2009 – The cress has been removed. The chilli and basil have started to grow quite big after a little pruning. |
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12th Jan 2010 – It’s been awhile since my last update to the Urban Jungle. The squash plant has been temporarily moved inside until I can find a permanent home for it (hopefully in someones garden!) because it was getting far too big and taking over the other plants. Some of the sugar pea plants did not make it through the holiday period and the snake grass eventually died from the fertiliser that was accidentally mixed with the soil. I’ve added some perlite to the top of the pots to hopefully help with water retention. Ideally the perlite would have been mixed in with the soil from the beginning |
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19th Jan 2010 – Shortly after this picture, I trimmed back most of the plants. Due to space issues, I dramatically trim back the pole sitaeo every few days. |
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28th Jan 2010 – One of the basil plants is starting to bud so I hope to see flowers soon. |
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29th Jan 2010 – Close up of the small white flowers growing on the basil plant. |
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25th Feb 2010 – Despite being so high up(don’t see many bees and such like up here), the chilli plant managed to get pollinated and has started to bear fruit. |
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28th Feb 2010 – A night shot of the jungle. Some of the older basil plants were removed and replaced with clones. The chilli and Tomato plant are bearing fruit. Everything else is doing pretty good also. |
nice garden. what type of chilli was that? maybe soft breeze and wind helps ur chilli to pollinate.
btw, perlite is good for aeration. you can use vermiculte if you need water retention. perlite can be easily blown away by wind when it is dry. and it easily dry up.
I’m pretty new into gardening myself. Started planting a buncha stuff. A little recommendation on your basil, coz from what i’ve read once that basil flowers then goes to seed it’ll die. So i’d pinch the buds while they’re still forming.
A quick question on what pepper variety you got growing on you picture coz i’ve been looking high and low for more exotic pepper varieties. Like habaneros, jalapenos, scotch bonnets. I tried buying them on ebay and so far nothing has yet to appear on my doorstep. Unless u wanna share some with me or something. =)
Any help will be greatly appreciated. Thanks.
Hey Franz, yeah I usually pinch the buds off as soon as I spot them to ensure I get the most out of the basil plant. But of course, if you want seeds, let it bud
Personally I find it much quicker to grow a clone than start again from seed.
The ones in the picture are scotch bonnet and they absolutely blow your head off, they’re so hot! I could share some seeds with you
Or a cutting if you like.
Wow ah u have a scotch bonnet. I actually have amassed a great variety of pepper seeds since i last posted on here. I have at least 15 varieties sown and starting to have seedlings of peppers. I still have a bunch more coming in from all over the world. Shared by the very nice members of the forum site thehotpepper.com
the seeds i bought from ebay finally arrived. I would appreciate it if you did share some seeds or cuttings to me. I can share you what i have in return. Email me and send u a list of what i’m willing to share with you. I got other things other than peppers.
See you around.
That’s impressive Franz! I hadn’t heard of that site before you mentioned it. Good job! I also have some other pepper seeds from the the UK. I’ve emailed you back with more details
I’ve actually started clearing out the ‘urban jungle’ to start with some new fresh plants. So it’s not much to look at right now. I’ll try update it once it’s looking a bit better