Carrot day and other stories

First carrot crop!

It’s been very stormy over the last few days so not surprised there are some casualties.....the beans. They look very sorry for themselves so not sure they’ll survive much longer.  The squash leaves look war torn too but the fruits are ok so fingers crossed.  What I’m really worried about is what I suspect is blight on one of the tomato plants. Got rid of it pronto and pray the others at other end of balcony are ok.

The good news (apart from my lovely carrots) is an empty planter waiting for some more seeds.

Decision time!

FIRST THINGS FIRST

We needed lots of planters .....Aldi’s timing was perfect.  Started with 2 and expanded to 13!  We also wanted one larger planter to accommodate the rose and other flowers so Marcus acquired an old gate and a couple of pallets and got creative. We then had to track down some seeds. This was a challenge as every gardening outlet had shut down! Friends came to the rescue with runner and french beans while Marcus scoured the county for anything that would grow.......he eventually secured a selection from little “all-sorts” shop in Nailsea.   Next hurdle was finding compost but Lidl came to the rescue with cheap but not brilliant quality soil which was good enough.  The planting commenced with a vengeance. Every available container with holes (drainage) was utilised. As it was still too cold outside we put tables up against our big windows which acted like a greenhouse.  Much holding of breath and crossing of fingers did the trick and you can see we’ve been very successful so far!

 

AFTER THE RAIN........

Today I thought you might like to see some more pics of the plants that are managing to survive torrential rain and strong winds blowing from Wales. 

What I’m really looking forward to is Potato Day.....but have to patient for a bit longer.

Welcome to my balcony garden

Hi everybody......... It occurred to me that as I’d been keeping a photographic record of how we created a useful and beautiful space in our only outside area it would be fun to share this while we’re spending most of our time here!

Our total plot is approx 9m x 1m (9 sq metres) plus a useful wall which supports the railings. We have filled this space with 12 planters on the ground and 4 on the wall. You will see there are a mixture of flowers and veg.......all very healthy and growing well.

I’ll pop in at least once a week to show you what I’m up to.  Meanwhile I’ve just worked out how to upload pics so next time there’ll be more plus a list of the veg we’ve grown so far.  

p.s. everything is twice the size since I took these photos!