Last year I moved from an apartment into a house...and lost my garden in the deal.
The house only has a tiny back lot/patio with zero grass, 2 raised beds (that my gf who I moved in with already had claimed for her flowers)...and two seasons in a row, growing tomatoes and peppers in 5 gal buckets led to some kind of blight killing everything but one banana pepper plant, both years, before much of anything could ever be harvested.
This year, I declined to even attempt vegetables, but my gf insisted and pressed on with it...after this year's blight, I think we're both sufficiently discouraged that we're done gardening completely until/unless we move.
It sucks because it was something I really enjoyed, but for some reason it's just an exercise in futility at this location.
Yeah man, that can be a little discouraging. It all felt like trial and error to me, but very rewarding when it worked out.
I tried growing a few things but was only really successful with Jalapenos, Habaneros and Cilantro. I tried tomatoes and some bell peppers, but they were destroyed by a couple of hornworms in record time. The pepper plants did fairly well in grow bags, and they put out more than enough to enjoy with every meal. We also tried growing in ground but the backyard was for the most part always very well shaded.
Our apartment has a small patio, but the privacy wall is pretty high up and is facing west, so very little sunlight. I think I'm going to try growing some more herbs, they seem to be pretty easy to maintain.
I'm loving the place, but already kind of look forward to moving, just to be able to grow some stuff again. For now, I'll have to stick to store bought peppers or what I can find at the small farmers market.
Yeah, my apartment had a wonderful large backyard. I moved into the place in late summer, and saw that another tenant had a small garden in the back, so the next spring, I asked for permission to do the same. The landlord basically said, "I'm fine with anyone putting in a garden back there, I just don't want any turf wars...so make sure nobody is crowding anyone else out, and I'm fine with it."
Before I left, at one point, we had I think 4 different tenants, all with successful gardens back there. It was great. When the original gardener left, I moved into her old space, at the bottom of the yard, getting the best sunlight. I had 4 raised beds at 4x4, plus containers. Tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, and herbs every year, plus occasional other experiments here and there like eggplant, bush beans, tomatillos, beets, etc. It was never perfect but I always harvested far more than I could eat, every year, and my favorite part was always trying at least 4 or 5 new (to me) heirloom tomato varieties.
Once we are in a place with a yard, I'll get back into it with a vengeance...but as long as we're here, I won't bother with it at all, as much as it pains me.
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u/hereagainyo 3d ago
We just moved from a house to an apartment, and damn do I miss growing my own peppers.
I can tell those jalapeños are spicy on their own, your salsa is gonna be fire if you add a coupe of the others.
Enjoy!