bit off more than I can chew

[paradajky]

Hi:


Following last year's awful results, I had intended to focus on quality for this year, and to stick with only a few dwarf tomatoes, a couple cucumbers, try an eggplant or two, and try growing peppers because they seemed to actually do really well here. My upstairs balcony patio has room for 5-6 smaller plants, and downstairs patio at most a dozen, but it gets very very tight.



For some reason near the end of last year I ended up buying a total of 14 different tomatoes through artisan seeds, and also from another vendor 4 peppers, 4 cucumbers, and 4 eggplants. I also want to grow squash a member here was kind enough to send me, and a cantaloupe. I don't know what I was thinking, maybe it's because I learned that the common area outside my fence is actually mine, and I'm allowed to take out the hedge, with the caveat that if there's an emergency, anyone can trample through the area.



I observed it for some time, and during the summer, only about a 6x9-12ft area gets sun until 5pm in the summer, totaling 8-10 hours. This is the red rectangle in the attached picture. It is separate from the ~12 plants I can fit in the area on the inside of the fence.



Everything to the north gets shade around 2pm because of my house and the neighbor's house. Then, to access, I have to hop the fence. I'll have to take out the hedge. Raised bed seems very challenging. I like to try to reuse things I already have, in this case, a lot of 5 gallon buckets and 18 home-made grow bags. Both items were used at parents' house, they have room for everything but I don't have time to go to their house this year. The buckets were part of double-bucket swc experiment, and the bags were for potatoes.



This is a bit overwhelming. Some of you must've gone through this before, and I'd appreciate any tips on how to figure this out.


Thanks for reading