Balcony Garden - Week 4 - Comparisons

There's been steady growth in the garden this week, but nothing much new and exciting. I have however added mulch to the pots to reduce water loss. So, I thought this week for my balcony garden update I'd mostly do some comparisons of how the plants have grown over the last month.

First up are my herbs, from left to right sage, thyme, oregano and rosemary. The top pic was taken on the 3rd of September a couple of days after I bought the seedlings, and the bottom taken on the 30th. (I have used some of all of the herbs except the sage):

These are my strawberry plants, again the first photo was taken on the 3rd of September, the second on the 30th. All the plants have flowers on them now. The one on the left, which is a red gauntlet, has 10-15 flowers that are turning into strawberries!! The one in the middle is a wild strawberry and has a couple of flowers (growing straight up the middle sticking into the air, you can just see one in the middle at the top of the photo). The one on the right is a Lowanna and has 3 or 4 flowers at the moment (growing at the bottom hidden by the leaves)

These are the tomatoes that I've grown from seed (which I'm still thrilled about!). The seeds were planted on the 2nd September, the top photo was taken on the 16th September, the middle photo taken on the 22nd September and the bottom photo taken on the 30th September.

These are the tomatoes that Helen kindly gave me. The top photo was taken on the 9th of September (when I was given them) and the bottom one taken on the 30th.

This is the "mystery pea" that Helen gifted me, the first photo was taken on the 9th of September, the second on the 30th. (In the second picture you can see that I've planted one of the butter bean seedlings I've grown in the same pot - as the bean is a bush bean and the pea a climber I figure this should be ok and make good use of the vertical space)

That's all the comparison shots I have for today, but here are some general progress shots of other things I have growing (these were all taken on the 30th Sept):

Perpetual Spinach

Dwarf Sugar snap peas (grown from pea/seed - planted on 8th Sept)

Green beans (grown from bean/seed, planted on 8th Sept)

Mixed Lettuce (grown from seed, planted on 8th sept)

Various seedlings (Lobelia and marigold planted on 2nd September, capsicum, scallions and basil planted on 8th September)

Various seedlings (marigold, lobelia and rocket planted on 2nd September)

The new shoots on the lime tree are doing really well.

Hopefully you've found this post at least a tiny bit as interesting as I have - I think it's interesting seeing how much some of the plants have grown in a month (and wow has that month flown by!). I got some more big pots today too, so once the tomatoes are a little bit bigger I'll plant them into those, and I think I'll get a cherry tomato seedling (I LOVE cherry tomatoes!)

One other thing I want to grow are Chillis, but I got completely overwhelmed at CERES looking at the seedlings as there were so many different kinds to choose from! Does anybody have any recommendations?