Ripening

Can you believe this is the same bowl of tomatoes? It's amazing what a little bit of sunshine can do. I think they're gonna get made into some chutney now.

Fried green Tomatoes anyone?

Tomato harvest is now complete. It felt like kicking a puppy, tearing the plants down. But they're done the job, and technically we've created more seeds for next year. Even though I'm going to eat them.

Harvest festival

Today was the day of reckoning for my potatoes. This was my ENTIRE potato harvest. The foliage suggested to me that I was gonna get a much bigger crop. Huh!

Let's hope they're delicious!

Come to Fruition

It's no lie that it's been the tomatoes that I have been really excited about. It's been a long job, but considering the growing conditions I had some good success. I had my first one in a cheese sandwich the other day and now have a small crop to do something with.

And even though it's the end of September, they still seem to be growing. There's plenty of green ones left on the plants.

In the meantime though, here is today's crop:

Tomato

That's what I'm talking about....

I've been doing some serious cutting back. Lots of pruning of the extra nubbins (some were practically branches) and one of the plants has bought it - it wasn't growing any fruit so I ripped it out. This means only x2 tomato plants remain, but both are bearing fruit.

Lessons for next year:

1) Always break off the extra leaf bits, otherwise there is chaos and you can't tell what plant is what.

2) Give them adequate structural support. They seem to like the board to grow up. I could fix a frame, and get them growing up that thing.

3) I think they had liked the shelter of the wooden board too.

4) Give them LOADs of water. I've been watering them loads but not all the water has been going in I think. The biggest, healthiest plant might have borne more fruit, but I'm still working on it.

5) The key is maintenance. They've grown quick in July. I haven't kept on top of them and they've grown all over each other.

Chilli

Turned my back for the weekend and look what happened!

It seems to be going great guns. My work removing green fly and eggs when I spy them seems to be helping

Neglect...

It's been ages since there's been an update. So much has gone on. Lots of the plants have looked worse for wear in the terrible rainy weather. It has brightened up a touch though. The biggest success flower wise are the African marigolds. I remember having them in the garden as a kid, so wanted to give them a go.

Tomatoes

OMG!!!!

LOOK!!!!

Courgette

This one has sprung up no problem. It's a weird plant. Kind of slithers along the ground and changes so fast. You can practically watch it.

I stuck it in this pot. I'm not sure how it'll do in there but we'll see. Where will the courgettes settle? That I don't know. They come out of the flowers I think, but there's not much room for them to sit. Maybe they'll hang over the edge?

Rewarded

Finally - I've been rewarded for the tough early work with the sweet peas. I've spotted my first flower!

There's a few more coming my way too. They're looking pretty special. I think they've forgiven my recent neglect and are ready to start they're summer showing.

Federer and Murray are currently battling it out in the centre court final at Wimbledon. The question is - are the sweet peas a good omen?

Neglect

After weeks of neglect I had a good go today to try to salvage what I could. The outdoor cucumbers bought it. Min said they just vanished one day - he'd gone to water them and there they were gone.

The French lavender is looking decidedly ropey - I don't know what is wrong with that, and there were white bug eggs on a lot of the chilli seedlings. So far, so bad.

To my surprise both the indoor and outdoor tomatoes appear to be going great guns. The indoor ones have gotten pretty dry. I'm hoping they'll like the new trays that I bought them today. Fingers crossed they'll respond to my emergency resuscitation measures!

They've even got little yellow flowers sprouting. Min reckons this is where the tomatoes will come from. Here's hoping...

Rain

Will this rain never stop? Everything is looking a bit dilapidated out there. The clematis' glorious flowers have all but gone and the pansies that were in the pots look like a bomb has hit them. I don't know what that is all about.

I have managed to keep the sweet peas going though. I've now built them a proper frame for them to climb up out of bamboo - they look much happier for that.

The tomatoes look like they are doing pretty good too. I gave them a feed yesterday. They seem pretty strong. The wind seemed to get them earlier in the year but they seem happier now. A bit bedraggled, but that's to be understood from what the poor blighters have been through.

Sunflower

This is the dearly sunflower that T and S bought for me as a gift as they were staying this weekend. It arrived fully bloomed like this so I didn't have to do anything at all to it except put it in a new pot and give it a drink. It's looking pretty sunny out there now.

In other news another lily has bloomed, and there are plenty more to go. Min reckons they are well on their way.

Lilies

Asian lilies have bloomed now. Got a bright shock of orange to contrast with the purple. Looking great.

Tonight min and I worked in the rain as we transplanted the sweet peas into their permanent new home. They're getting so tall now - needed to make a higher frame for them out of some bamboo I got from the pound shop.

Also got a BBQ cover and some king Edward seed potatoes, £1 each. I love that shop. It seemed only fitting that I got the bamboo from the same shop I got the sweet peas and their mini propagator.

It's the circle of life.

Salad

This weekend got my first salad from the garden. Had some fish cakes for lunch and there were enough leaves to go with it. Ripped up some rocket and pulled out a few mixed leaves too. The mixed leaves were pretty mixed - there were plants in there that didn't look like lettuce at all. Long stringy things that looked like weeds. I gave them a bite - they weren't very good, so they went in the bin anyway.

Salad was pretty good though. Now I need to grow some more!

Sunshine

Glorious weather continues - and the clematis loves it. The flowers which were huge anyway seem to have got bigger. The petals have flattened out and formed into a sort of disc, and all seem to be facing the sun.

Julius gave everything a good drink yesterday as the tomatoes looked worse for wear after only 2 days without water. Other news is that the replanted seedlings are going crazy. I didn't bother with placing things in the airing cupboard and just let them germinate on the windowsill. 6 days later and they're on their way.

Washed the old milk bottle out with water then used it on the tomatoes. I think I remember reading somewhere that that was a good idea. Let's see!

Teaching Mam how to blog

Not that mam ever will blog, but....

She wanted to see a picture of the clematis flower, so we've posted it together. She thinks the purple flower is beautiful. I've got 5 of them now on display it looks like its really taking off. Some of the leaves are turning yellow, but not sure why.

Mam says: 'are you sure you're giving them enough water?'

Bumble bee

It just gets more and more exciting out here. Today is the first sighting of a bumble bee. He was zooming in and out of the pansies drinking all he could. The pansies have really gone for it and just seem to keep growing and growing. Think I'm gonna need to keep them in check as they seem to be winning the war against the lettuces.

Tomatoes at night

They just keep getting taller. They need sticks and string now

Klaussie came round for her tea

It was lovely. Then we got a bit drunk and bit some rolo biscuits.

Here are the pansies and lettuces. They are doing grand.

Touch of frost

Tomatoes are tucked up in the warm. Weather forecast is touch of frost in the morning

Tomato sadness

It's been a tough week. Been trying to harden off my tomatoes. Wind burn?

Return of the French

Today was the reward for taking of the French lavender Julius got me last year all over winter. It's started producing lavender flowers again.

The whole plant doesn't know what it's doing. The bottom bit is all dry and woody, the middle is looking a steady green, and the ends are all new shoots and brand new flowers. It's like three plants rolled into one. Julius reckons I should have cut it back during winter or something. I'll have to look into that for next year.

Main job today was changing the magazines in the nursery. I've got all the plant pots sitting on discarded copies of celeb magazines. The ones they had were all wrinkled. It was easy to give them a quick air brushing by ripping out some new pages and swapping them for the old. Hopefully they're feeling all cosy and tucked in with their new clean sheets

Mins feedback

Min came round yesterday and was chuffed to see how everything is getting on. He said it looks like I've got an allotment in my living room.

He went out to the 6x12 for a smoke and spotted my first proper lettuce leaf. You can see from the crinkled edge that it's no longer a regular seedling, but now a bone fide lettuce.

The lettuces are in a kind of window box thing that is hung on the edge of the balcony. I noticed that wind whips over the edge of it and the seedlings shiver. I wonder how they'll do in there?

First Glimpse

Been posting for a few days now, and I realise I haven't even shown you my 6x12. I'm a bit seedling intoxicated at the moment. You can get a bit of an idea what I'm working with from this pic.

Grow bags - check
Terra cotta pots - check
Donated banzai tree - check
Bit of string - check

Your sweetness is my weakness

Introducing my sweetpea pyramid. I grew these ones from a start kit I bought in the pound shop. I got a packet of seeds, some compost and a propagator all for a pound. They grew quickly - they seem to love the sun.

A lot of them were too quick for me though and got too tall for their own weight, fell over and snapped. I tried putting a stick in for them to climb up, but they didn't have the strength to hold onto that alone. In despair, I asked my mam. She suggested the pyramid as she has managed to get something similar going in her garden. So now that's what I've got. There's a few on the go, but this is the biggest. Not bad huh?

Rocket(ing)

My mate Ann was on about growing rocket in her back garden. 'it grows like a weed' she says. Apparently all you need to do is sling some seed into a grow bag and let it do it's stuff.

Such a simple recipe sounded right up my street. On a heady trip to Homebase u bought one too many terracotta pots in a fit of excitement. I chucked some compost in, watered it and scattered a few rocket seeds on top. On top of that I just sprinkled a bit more compost, just to say cover the seeds and then gave it another good water and left it out on the 6x12.

9 days later I've got me some seedlings! We've had the wettest April in 100 years, so in sure the regular drink that they have been having has helped. Now it's a case of waiting and seeing, to see if I get a harvest. Fingers crossed!

Salvaged

Just left these bad boys for a little over 24 hours, and they seem to be greening up! But the key question now is, what are they supposed to look like?

I was literally agog when i saw how much they had grown in just 6 days. If I had CCTV in the airing cupboard I could have sat and watched it. Although I admit, it would not have been much of a show.

Will they truly be salvaged, or will they end up as next years compost?

In other news 3 chilli seedlings are now peeking out of their little cells. More on that later

The day of the Seedling

One of the aspects of my growing project that has got me hooked is growing things from seed. I've already had some early successes with my tomatoes and sweet peas and lettuce (I'll post more on them another time). Full of confidence with my achievements I wanted to get some other salad things on the go. I had fantasies of people coming round for dinner and me preparing salad from the garden.

So last weekend, I got out a windowsill propagator that Olive bought me and another separate cell tray and buried a stash of little seeds to get cooked. The packet suggested keep them in and temperature of 20 c and they should germinate in 7 -14 days. Once they were all prepared and lids on, I put them in the airing cupboard. 6 days later (so I was early...) I checked, and found this:

6'x12' is the total size of my balcony. I bought the flat where I live a couple of years ago. This was my 'big move' and somewhere I really wanted to make my home. One of the key reasons I chose it was because it had some space outside that I could enjoy.

Its an adventure being here. I've loved settling in and making it my own. The balcony is a true sanctuary. Hidden behind a busy city road it is a total sun trap. Facing north-west it gets the afternoon sun which suits me. I work all day so I get to enjoy the evening light in the spring and summer.

Last year I bought a few pot plants to brighten it up and got bought a few as gifts. Accidentally, I had my very first garden.

Inspired by my modest success (only one of them died), this year I've got the gardening bug.

Its only April, but I've got all sorts on the go already. Completely impatient, I stand over my babies every morning, willing them on. I'd never really appreciated how quickly things happen when you're growing things.

There's so much going on and I don't want to miss out on anything. I started wondering how I can make sure I can keep hold of and record all thats happening, and then I came up with the idea of a blog.

So today is the day it starts. My ambition is to record what happens in my little 6'x12' over the spring and summer.

What is going to change? And what is going to stay the same?