Pests on the Balcony

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It's been a little while since I posted an update on the Balcony of Eden, so I figured I'd better get my ass in gear in case I lose my ever-widening audience! 
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The past few weeks have not been kind to me. One of the neighbours had pigeons nesting on their roof, and now that the little buggers are all hatched and half-grown, the entire corner of the apartment complex is plagued by these pesky birds. They are warbling all night, crapping on everyone's decks, and in my case, eating my fricking beans like there's no tomorrow!
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Death to all the pigeons that ate my beans!

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When the beans flowered and then began to fruit, I was really excited and thought perhaps I'd bring in 100 or more beans. I was planning on building a root cellar and everything. Then the pigeons came, and within two days ate almost every damn sprouting bean that I had! They left me three beans - yes, only three! Stupid birds didn't even let them grow. I seen the beans come out in one or two days, just tiny little sprouts, and the pigeons came and gobbled them up before they even had a chance to grow. What a disappointment! I went to Wal-Mart and bought one of them fake-owl scarecrows... which seems to work, but it was too late to save the bean crop. What a waste.
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Lettuce completely destroyed by worms.

To further disappoint, the lettuce which I planted a month ago had finally started to really grow... until the one morning I came out and they were just dead. And I mean dead. Full of life the one day, completely dead and flat on the ground the next. I just couldn't figure it out... until the next day when I had a closer look and seen these little worms amongst the leaves. They were pretty gross looking - almost like maggots - but they're not because they move along like inch worms. I looked around online and figure they were some kind of cabbage worm that will later turn into moths. It was incredible, these little buggers. Not only did they kill the lettuce overnight, but over the next three or four days, they ate every last bit of it! I mean, there's nothing left! I wish I would have taken a picture each day, but I had no idea they would simply devour the lettuce like that. Now they're all dead because there's nothing left to eat. Ha ha! Who's the smarty pants now?
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Cucumbers starting to fruit

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As for the rest of the garden, it is coming along fine. I had a pile of cucumbers flower - over twenty - and of the several that fruited there are five or six pretty good sized ones starting to form. I don't know if the smaller ones will continue to grow, as they are obviously now lagging the larger ones.
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Don't need any cucumbers dropping down there, do we?

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You'll notice that the cucumbers are no longer attached to the railing as they were last month. I had to move them because there are some people living on the bottom floor who have little kids and they set their patio up as a playground. As I watched my cucumbers flower and fruit, I started to get worried that as they grew larger... what if one of them fell off the vine and dropped four stories onto some poor kids head? So, I transferred the cucumber plants to some large sticks I had, and later also bought a trellis for them to attach to. It doesn't look as nice as before, but it's better than becoming the guy who killed some kid with a falling cucumber.   
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Raspberries looking healthy again... but now the blueberries are hurting!

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In a strange turn of events, my raspberry plant which I was sure was going to die last month has perked right up with signs of new life. But now my blueberry plant is suffering the death look in almost the exact same fashion as the raspberries were last month. Neither of these two plants produce enough fruit worth mentioning. I hope they both survive and work out better next year. Time will tell, but for this year, they were not worth the money. ($60 between the two of them!)
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Nasturtiums

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The nasturtiums I planted last month have come up nicely, but no flowers yet. I should have planted these all in one pot, or better yet, I should have planted them in with the tomato plants, since they are companion plants. Out of the package of 20 seeds which only actually contained 19, seven of them came up. Not a blazing success, but they do fill in quite well as they grow. Still, I shouldn't have used two pots for them.
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Peppers starting to flower

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The peppers have finally flowered and, if you look closely on the right, have just begun to fruit. So far, out of the five pepper plants, four have flowered. These things sure do flower late in the year - the same as last year when they flowered so late I didn't think they would at all - but then, around the end of July or beginning of August, bam! And they were ready to pick by September. This year seems like it will be a repeat.
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Cherry Tomatoes

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The cherry tomatoes are coming along alright, what few of them grew this year. Usually I have oodles of cherry tomatoes, but this year it looks like I'll hardly even get a handful.
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The best damn tomato on earth!

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But my, oh my, look at that one nice, big, juicy tomato, eh?

EH?

Isn't that beautiful?

I plucked that work of art and ate it all by itself, with only a little salt & pepper added. It tasted as good as it looked.

Good job on that one, Mr. Gardener!
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