Balcony Garden - Week 12 - The Fruits of my Labour

The last few weeks have been exciting for my garden - I've started getting ripe strawberries!

These aren't all the strawberries I've had,  but these are the ones I've photographed. So far I've had a few of the Lowanna  strawberries (the bigger ones), and quite a lot of wild strawberries (the tiny ones). I have to say, the wild strawberries don't look like much, but WOW do they taste amazing! Like a little strawberry taste explosion in your mouth!

Not all has been great however. Below are the first two strawberries I picked. I was so excited to have strawberries that were ripe...

but look at the other side:

Something else had already decided they looked like a good snack! BOO!

And in other news, my herbs are certainly the unsung heroes of my balcony garden; I've been finding myself frequently going out and picking herbs to use when I'm cooking. Fresh thyme makes bolognaise taste delicious!

And look! Tomatoes growing! This is the first one I spotted, taken a couple of weeks ago now. I've now got a few more growing on the various plants, and my cherry tomato plant is taller than me!

Balcony Garden - Week 9

It's been a little while since I posted a Balcony Garden update, so I thought I'd better get on it.

I've been occasionally munching away on Spinach or adding it to sandwiches. I'm also getting into the habit of occasionally grabbing some herbs while cooking. And most excitingly I've been eating some of the 'mystery pea's, which turned out to be a Snow Pea. I think I've had about 7 peas of the plant now, and there are still more appearing. They grow so quickly! From nothing being visible one day to a fully grown pea about 3 or 4 days later!

Anyway, in the spirit of keeping things varied, this week I thought I'd just showcase some of the photos I've taken. I've been taking photos of my balcony garden every Sunday and am trying to get some practice in with my new camera. Here are some of the closer up snaps I've taken...

Strawberries!!! (5th Nov)

Tomato Flowers (5th Nov)

Sage & 'Mystery Pea' aka Snow Pea (5th Nov)

Capsicum & Basil Seedlings (5th Nov)

Carrot Seedlings & Perpetual Spinach (5th Nov)

Mint & Thai Chilli (29th Oct)

Lime & Pea Flowers (21st Oct)

Rainbow Lorikeet having a snack on the gum tree nearby (20th Oct)

Mixed Lettuce Seedling & Lime Flowers (15th Oct)

Rosemary Flower (15th Oct)

I'm still loving tending my little garden, and watching it grow. I can't wait to start getting produce from my other plants!

Balcony Garden - Week 5 - Good & Bad

My garden is still going well, and this week I really feel like it "leveled up" as I added little bamboo tee-pee's to the mystery pea and yellow boy tomatoes from Helen. I also bought a Cherry tomato plant and some Thai Chilli seedlings, and planted some more basil, some coriander and some carrots.

The reason for the tee-pees was that the mystery pea plant pretty much doubled in size in a week, appearing to grow about two inches each day - I'd come out each evening and be surprised how much it had grown in the previous 24 hours! Here it is one week apart (from slightly different angles so it's tricky to see, but it's about double the size at least):

 

However, not everything is going swimmingly, and I was hoping somebody might be able to suggest what's gone wrong here, but my oregano is looking REALLY sad. I noticed last week that about 2/3 of the oregano plant has died, and then today it's looking even worse again. Below are a series of photos of the oregano:


(22nd September)


(30th September)


(4th October)


(7th October)


(10th October)

What have I done to it???! It looks like it was doing fine until I added the mulch, but I thought mulch was supposed to be good the plants?! when I first noticed I stuck my finger in the soil to check they had enough water (although they're in a self watering pot) and it felt relatively dry, so I've been watering from the top rather than just adding water in the bottom like the pot says, but it doesn't seem to have helped. I haven't watered it too much I don't think either. I have fed the plants with seasol seaweed extract at fortnightly intervals (as instructed on the bottle), but surely that's not bad for it?  I've closely examined the other herbs that are in the same tub (Rosemary, Thyme and Sage) and they're all doing great (the thyme in particular is doing really well).

Anyone? Help! Please!

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?