Lazy gardener

So I have been guilty lately of being a lazy gardner.  Or maybe thoroughly disappointed and therefore questioning the potential for better results.

I have been babying all my plants, checking on them daily.  I noticed that all my plants stop growing taller once they are outside, even when given adequate water.  The veggie plants seem to go to flower much too quickly in their lifecycle - they should be growing much taller before they bud.  Once they go to flower, they stop growing taller and focus on growing fruit.  I'm not sure how to force upward/outward growth.

The second round of pea plants have flowered and are sprouting peas, but the results aren't much better than the first round of plants.  They are barely fruiting enough for a single serving of pea pods.

The previously questionable cucumber has also gone to flower.  The plant grew some additional leaves once planted outside, although the size is still underwhelming. I'm not sure what size cucumbers this plant can handle - it's barely a cucumber wide itself!

The pepper seedlings which are outside haven't budged an inch upward, outward, sideways or downwards.  Nothing.  They look exactly as they did three weeks ago when I planted them.  No new leaf growth.  Puzzling.

I'll probably plant the final remaining tomato and pepper seedlings (basically until the soil runs out) and call it a season.  I'm not going to go crazy building any fancy self-watering systems if sunlight is the issue (which is the only conclusion I can come to).  The plants haven't shown any sign of underwatering, overwatering, disease, pests.  They just are... midget and don't want to grow!

Urban gardening isn't easy when you're missing full-day direct sunlight.  Afternoon sun just doesn't seem enough.  Despite what all the books, website and other material state about the ease of growing container plants, they all assume your tiny deck is getting the right angle of sunlight for enough hours a day.  At least for vegetables.  Unfortunately, that can't happen on the deck I have.

Just to prove I'm not a total brown thumb, my pothos, which I divided and took cutlings from last year, is ready for another round of cuttings.

Moving outdoors take 2

Was it really seven days ago I planted those new pea plants in plastic cells and plopped them in my window?  A week later I'm planting four outside because they've outgrown their cells!  It's amazing how well the second batch has grown - makes the batch currently outside look lame.  I'll give the older peas another two weeks to get the leg on, otherwise, they are getting replaced.

I'm wondering if I started some plants inside too early and should have waited -- although I was following the general directions of the MG.  It may be that container gardening needs to run on a different schedule than terra firma gardening.

The cucumber plants seem to be recovering from their earlier scare - the white spots dried up and now new leaves are growing.  I've left the bottle cloches off all week and that seems to be helping immensely.  A check of the weather and night time temperatures min out at 49 this week - I'm beyond the frost scare.  I'll also give these two more weeks to recover or be replaced.

I took four carnival pepper plants and four italian style pepper plants and put them outside in my second window box.  A couple of the plants that had been standing strong now are leaning to the side.  I'm hoping a few days outside in gorgeous weather will change things.

Tomorrow I will make a trip to the home depot or walmart and decide how to finish the planting.  I have a few lettuce sprouts that look extremely healthy and need to go outside ASAP along with at least four more pea plants.  I also need to get a deeper vessel, possibly a bucket, for the tomato plants.  I'm leaning towards attempting the self-watering container directions with smaller bins.  I need to find a happy medium - big enough for the plant's roots but will still fit on my patio without being too heavy for me to move around.