So today I went to a cash-and-carry near where I live, and while in their veggie department remembered that I had a hole between my “curry plant” (which is by the way better known as Helichrysum italicum and has nothing to do whatsoever with the spice-mix curry except it smells and tastes a bit like it) and my baby basil, so I ran over to see if they had any fresh tarragon and they did! So now the herb box has the helichrysum, tarragon, basil, parsley and mint. Mint and tarragon are both perennial and the helichrysum is actually an evergreen which sets small flowers in the summer, so them being in the balcony box should work out fine Might find something else than parsley and basil to cohabit the box next year though so it can just keep being awesome… and stuff

Oh, and one strawberry plant has started producing berries receptacles. Mmm, receptacles

Just a quick update with pics! Weather’s been grey the last couple of days, but stuff is happily sprouting! Spinach racing, lettuce beating it… and even the first 2 carrots and 1 beetroot is poking out of the ground! And it even looks like I might get lucky with the rosemary this year!

Time for a real update! As you might know, one of the biggest problems with maintaining a balcony garden – apart from lack of space – is for me getting a hold of soil. Sure, the nearest place that sells it is only 1.5km away, but you try lugging a bag of soil home without having a car… and I don’t just need one bag – I use around 4 bags (200l) of soil on my ickle balcony!

Luckily my parents are visiting right now as they’re off to the 50th wedding anniversary of some friends (now that’s an achievement!) and they brought the car! So this being a public holiday, yet the garden centers of several of the big DIY centers being open, we went to one of them and bought 250l of soil and 25l of Leca balls. Had also decided that I wanted a tomato plant and 2 more strawberry plants, as the 3 I have didn’t produce anything last year and are quite slow-growing (they’re originally runners from my late grandma’s garden given to my aunt, and I got some runners from her last year). They didn’t get any new tomato plants and the ones they had looked halfway dead so ended up just getting strawberries… that is until I went slightly shopping mad First I decided on buying a mint plant… Can you say homemade mojitos? Then I noticed a funny plant next to it… “curry plant”. Never seen one of those, but smells like curry, and for 10dkk ($2), it can’t go completely wrong. Last but not least I bought a chili plant (fairly mild one)… and carrot, lettuce and spinach seeds. Mum also brought over 5 bell pepper plants from a coworker of hers, who had planted too many, which is nice as it saves me trying to start mine late! Now I’m really only missing the tomato and I’ll have everything I had planned for this year and a bit more.

I just planted and sowed everything, so status is:

• Carrots in one tub
• Beetroot in other tub
• 5 bell pepper plants each in a pot
• Mild chili in pot
• 3 pots of sweet peas, happily growing
• One balcony box with 5 strawberry plants (2 from garden center, 3 from grandma’s garden)
• One balcony box with spinach (this year regular spinach, not New Zealand spinach!)
• Two balcony boxes of lettuce – half of one box is head forming lettuce, the rest is leaf.
• One balcony box of herbs – Curry, mint and basil – basil is from seed, I just decided to move them from a pot today
• One pot of oregano – from seed
• One pot of rosemary – from seed, but they have yet to show. Didn’t have much luck with rosemary last year either, but still think it’s worth a shot
• Missing: Tomato. Will be dealt with asap

Carrots and beets are an experiment. I tried carrots and leek last year but didn’t succeed, and I think it was because the pots were on the floor of the balcony and they didn’t get much in terms of sun and warmth. This year I have tried to raise them up a bit – though currently it’s only a temporary solution, as I need to find another way to keep them raised up than a shoe-tray on a chair

Anyway, pictures! Enjoy!

Time to start up the balcony garden again! It’s a bit of a late start this year, but to be honest, the weather has been absolute shit until recently. Now it’s awesome though; 20c days and plus degrees all night, so all is well.

I really should have done a “before” picture – I spent the evening readying everything, and I dragged down 200l of used soil and dead plants to the trash room in 4 (heavy!) sacks in preparation for everything. I had enough fresh soil for 6 pots, so they’ve already been filled, and the sweetpeas are soaking in a glass of water so they can be planted tomorrow. Also, my strawberry plants survived the harsh long winter and are happily growing. Now I need to find a friend with a car so I can get some more soil, but to be honest, just getting all the old stuff thrown out has helped immensely, as that was a sort of mental block to get started again.

Anyway, a picture of my strawberries and a quick look from the window post cleanup – the plastic covering on my little greenhouse had been folded up and lying on the balcony ever since last summer, so it needed a scrubbing – hence why it’s wet in the pictures!

Just a quick update – been horribly busy, but in a good way Things are still living on the balcony, but one of the tubs of carrots as well as the sweetpeas kinda died due to lack of sunlight, so I now use those tubs to prop up the other carrots and the leek tub, hoping they will get even more sun then.

Also just planted some more lettuce after eating most of what I have; here’s to hoping the weather will still be good for a couple of months

Now, pics!

… because now the peppers are growing, yay! And the tiny tomatoes are tasty!

The first tiny batch of spring onions are ready and will be eaten tonight. Next year I will definitely sow them closer together; they should be able to manage that, and it’s one of those things I eat a lot of.

The oregano is also huge and ready; will eat that tonight as well!

Other than that, tomato plant has grown and made more tomatoes, and the peas are still racing. However, I doubt I will get any peppers this year, so will have to come up with an ingenious way of keeping them in my windowsill without the cats being able to get to them. We’ll see how that goes.

Strawberry plants are finally looking a bit healthier, but not showing much sign of berries. Will probably try new plants next year.

As you can hear, I’m already pondering what I will sow next year (or in the case of garlic, later this year), and so far spring onion, lettuce, spinach, tomato and various herbs are definitely in. The rest is still a bit up in the air and depends on the yield, if any.

I have no idea why I didn’t think of doing this before, but I have now added a homemade irrigation system (read: upside down soda bottles) to most of my pots. But now it’s done and should make caring for everything easier.

I have had to cut off some of the “branches” on the tomato – while I was gone, they went all shrivelled and yellow, so just in case it was something infecting it, I decided to just cut them off. That being said, it’s now bearing tiny little tomatoes, yay!

The strawberries won’t really give anything this year; next year I’ll be getting new plants. It’s not all my fault though; my mum told me that her batch (we both got ours from my aunt) isn’t really showing any promise either.

Anyway, no more writing; time for pictures!

I knew the sweetpeas would grow fast; but they’re surprising even me! These last 3 days haven’t been awesome weather wise – loads of rain and not that much sun – but the peas seem to like it!

The peppers and oregano is growing quite fast as well

The rest of the balcony looks more or less the same as last post – a few more flowers on the tomato plant and such; but nothing as exciting as the peas!

This will probably be the last post for 10 days or so, as I’m off to India all of next week, and leaving the flat, kitties and balcony to my good friend, Sean. So until then, tata!

/Lac

Summer has finally hit Copenhagen, and I have been hanging out in the nearby huge park quite a bit – I might even get a bit of a tan this year!

The fact that summer has arrived also means that I have taken the plastic off the “greenhouse”; it should be warm enough for everything to survive now. I also sowed some more lettuce and spring onion today; you can never have too much spring onion, and lettuce will be sown as it is eaten – and I have already eaten some of it, yum!

This great weather also means I really have to remember to water my plants every day; my tomato is currently looking a bit dry after I forgot to water it for 2 days thanks to exam stress – but I think (and hope) it will survive anyway

… but I know you’re not that interested in my yapping, so here’s the pictures!

In my last post, I mentioned that I had planted sweetpeas and spinach… this is how they’re faring so far:

The new basil is also growing in its pot:

And last but not least, the two pots which holds the new spring onion I sowed