Spring Plans for 2018

So there has been some time since we have last posted on the Blog.

It has been a busy family time last year with a new member of the family "Marley Bloom" and Oscar is growing up so fast!

But with a new season comes a new plan!

So with the help from a lovely gardening app we have planned out this years veg garden.

So far we have 4 different Basil plants on the go...Thai, Genovese, Dark Opal, Lemon

2 Weeks old:

In time will look like the following:

Dark Opal

Lemon

Thai

Genovese

We also planted outside our Garlic Bulbs "Provence Wight" (just before the winter frost) and there are looking very happy!

Also just started Propagating some Pumpkin plants and looking good only 1 week old.

Also Catnip...

New Home for The Little Balcony

Sadly last weekend The Little Balcony was packed up and taken to a new location. Our current London flat was sold, which we had been planning for a whole and in a very mad last minute rush, due to a last minute change, we moved to a new rented London flat, which unfortunately does not have a garden or a balcony, as I had hoped.

During the move, I had to get rid of all the vegetable plants, which included the last of the Tomatoes, Chilies and Courgettes; luckily it was coming to the end of the session so these were ready to be thrown away. Otherwise along with the Herbs, the Brussels Sprout plant, which is still growing away and the Strawberry plants, these were all taken to my mum’s house up north in Chester, which will be their new home.

I am a little sad about this, as I won't be able to plant anything new next year, but it will give me time to start on the cook book, which I've been trying to get off the ground for the last couple of years. Hopefully we will be moving somewhere new in about six months and a garden/balcony is high on my list.

Having said that I did manage to keep a few plants, which hopefully will survive indoors on the kitchen windowsill, I have a Lavender plant, the Vietnamese Coriander plant, a Parsley plant and two Chili plants, which are still flowering and then all the other house plants.

Even More Courgettes

We had lovely weather over the past weekend, very warm and humid but great for all the vegetables which seem to blossom and enjoy the splash of heat that's finally arrived. I had a little nosey around the vegetables to see how everything was doing and I notices one long Courgette as least 6cm in size and then another four just starting to form behind this.

I'm really really excited as last year it was very disappointing, due to only getting one Courgette from four plants, so I'm overjoyed that this one plant has so many Courgettes on, they obviously love there new place on the Balcony.
 

                                                        Photo: Laura Lunt  Date: August 2012

                                                                     Photo: Laura Lunt  Date: August

First Round Courgette

This year I decided to try a different variety of Courgette, instead of just planting a few of the normal long variety, 'All Green Bush', I also planted some round ones called 'Tondo di Piacenza', which came free in a garden magazine I bought.

Last year I had a bad experience with my 'All Green Bush' Courgettes, out of four plants they only produced one Courgette, which was very dissappointing. But I hoped I could do better this year with two varieties and I also placed these nearer to the front of the balcony, so they could get more sun.

                                                                     Photo: Laura Lunt  Date: August 2012
The round variety were actually put in a hanging basket, and the results have been great, I currently have several Courgettes coming through, which I am so happy about, they obviously love the hanging basket. The normal long variety plant is in a pot near to the front of the balcony and this has tons of flowers on, which have just started to open, so fingers crossed I'll have some Courgettes coming through soon.

This Years First Tomatoes

Over the last couple of months the Tomatoes have been outside, growing away and enjoying the lovely sunshine we've had now and then, when it's decided to show itself. The first two Moneymaker Tomatoes were removed earlier this week and were a gorgeous red colour, they're skins were a little bitty, but this might be because I haven't feed them enough over the last few weeks, which I have now been doing for the rest.

                                                                     Photo: Laura Lunt  Date: August 2012

The other two varieties, Gardeners Delight an Roma VF, are now happily growing away also, I was a little worried for a while as the leaves were going crazy and lots of flowers were coming through, but no Tomatoes, but having had a look this week they now seem to have gone crazy.

                                                                     Photo: Laura Lunt  Date: August 2012

Chilies Planted Up & Growing

This years Chilli plants have been planted up in their final place for a few weeks now and are now sitting comfortably on the Livingroom windowsill. We have one Thai Dragon Chili plant, one Hot Chili Pepper 'Apache' plant (store bought) and one Inferno Chili plant. The non-store bought Chili plants were grown from seeds from last years plants, and as stated in an earlier blog, I'm not sure what these will come out like, due to the pollen of the plants being mixed together, but I can't wait to see how they grow and also how hot they may be.

                                                                  Photo: Laura Lunt  Date: June 2012

I've also planted and finally managed to germinate some Cayenne Pepper Chili plants, which I have three and also the Hotscotch (Hot) Chili Pepper plants (no photos), again I have three of, these are all nicely planted in two big pots and sitting on the windowsill of the spare bedroom, they get great late evening sun there.

                                                                     Photo: Laura Lunt  Date: August 2012

At the moment the three in the livingroom are growing really well and already have a lot of flower buds on them, which hopefully will turn into lots and lots of Chilies and then I can get on with another year of making Chili Jam and my lovely boyfriend Zac, can test out a few more versions of his Hot Sauce.

                                                                     Photo: Laura Lunt  Date: August 2012
 

Delight of Spring Onions

Yesterday I decided to look into what may be in a few pots that I planted up last year. As I didn't label them, which is always a big mistake, I had thought I'd planted both Spring Onions and Leeks into these pots, but none of the growing plants ever looked like Leeks.

                                                        Photo: Laura Lunt  Date: 08 July 2012

So, I decided to investigate and dig into these pots and see what I actually had and to my surprise I had three pots of Onion (Spring) White Lisbon Winter Hardy, 22 in total. Not sure what happened to the Leeks, they may have died off, but these looked great.
 

                                                        Photo: Laura Lunt  Date: 08 July 2012

And they came in very handy last night as we used them in our Chinese crispy shredded beef we had for dinner, very fresh and delicious, another must have for next years garden.

Courgettes Two Types

It didn't take long for the Courgettes to start growing, once sown. Within a week two of these were popping out of the propagator soil, I have one Courgette 'Tondo di Piacenza' which is a round variety and one Courgette 'All Green Bush', which is a normal long variety.

                                         Photo: Laura Lunt  Date: June 2012

These have now been planted outside, as I lost a couple of the Strawberry plants, I've placed the round Courgette variety in here and potted another one up in another individual pot.

                                                    Photo: Laura Lunt  Date: June 2012

Brussels Sprouts Not Lost

For a while I thought I'd lost the Brussels Sprout plants I've been growing, they seemed to have suffered a lot while I was away on holiday for a week, but it looks like I may have actually had a few survive, which I re-planted up a few weeks ago.

I originally grow so many that I gave a pot full to my mum.

                                                                                  Photo: Laura Lunt  Date: June 2012

In total I managed to save four of the plants, one I've planted on its own and the other three in a long pot, they are very small at the moment, but hopefully they'll grow and I'll have some sprouts ready to eat at Christmas.

                                                                  Photo: Laura Lunt  Date: June 2012

First Strawberries of the Year

Last year I created some Runners from the 'Alice' Strawberry plants I got from Thompson & Morgan, see blog Strawberry Runners for Beginners. The new Runners were left in my mini-greenhouse to over winter and around April they were planted up into hanging baskets.

                                            Photo: Laura Lunt  Date: June 2012

Unfortunately I started with four plants and lost two while I was a way on holiday at the end of May. But within a few weeks the others started to show some Strawberries coming through and this week I managed to pick the first four which were ripe to eat... delicious.

                                                   Photo: Laura Lunt  Date: July 2012

Cheating Peppers (Sweet)

Not sure what's been going on this year, it might be the weird weather we've been having here, but I've tried to sow a couple of batches of Pepper (sweet) since February and I've had no luck, so much so, that I decided to give up a couple of weeks ago and buy a couple from my local garden center.

                                                                  Photo: Laura Lunt  Date: June 2012

These have been doing great over the last week or so, and are happily sitting on the south-east windowsill growing away.

Aloe Vera - New Shoots

My Aloe Vera plant hasn't been looking too good lately, but I noticed the other day that there was three new shoots coming off the plant, which I carefully re-potted over the weekend, hopefully these will survive. I mixed the old soil from the plant with some of the vegetable compost, which will hopefully give them a little feed to encourage some growth.

                                                          Photo: Laura Lunt  Date: March 2012

As for the old plant I'm hopeing to save the nurishing liquid from its leaves, as its great for burns and other healing methods... I just have to figure out how to do this, so I guess I'll be hitting the old gardening herb books, as well as my new book Grow Your Own Drugs by James Wong, to see how I can use this.

First Attempt at Garlic

Last year my boyfriend Zac bought some Garlic plants that had already been started off, at the local garden centre. I planted them in one of the large pots, but they never seemed to do anything. Eventually they all died off except one, which just wouldn't give up.

This ended up in a pot on its own and left over winter and a couple of weeks ago it started to look a little bit straggly, so I took the bulb out to dry out and this is what I was left with.

                                                                       Photo: Laura Lunt  Date: March 2012

More Garlic has been planted for late last year, so hopefully attempt number two will be a lot better.

Chili & Pepper (Sweet) - Mystery Seeds?

It seems though I thought I'd be doing a great thing by saving my Chili and Pepper (sweet) seeds, it has been pointed out me to that these may not be exactly true to type, when it comes to sowing them. Some very good advice from a fellow UK Veg Garderners gardener has let me know that as a rule of thumb, different varieties of Chilies and Peppers (sweet) should either be planted at least four miles apart or they should be grown under insect proof nets, for the plants to produce seeds true to type.

I've planted my 'so called' Chili and Pepper (sweet) seeds under their original names but it seems, I may actually end up with very different varieties such as 'Thai Tabasco' or 'Inferno Dragon' and maybe even a not so cool Pepper (sweet).

I'm very excited about this, as I had no idea about the possibility of it happening, but everything is now planted and all's I have to do is just wait and see.

Poor Growing Aubergines

Part of creating 'The Little Balcony', was that I wanted to grow vegetables I'd never tried before, so the Aubergine was one of these and I thought it would be a great challenge. I started these off at the same time as most of the other vegetables, but I did have some difficulty with them growing at first, so I placed glass jars (my homemade Cloches) over them during the coolers months of the first part of the year and this did help them to survive, but their growth was still very slow.

                                                                                  Photo: Laura Lunt  Date: July 2011

After months of watering and feeding, they start to grow steadily stronger and by July they were around 20cm tall and looking healthier every day. Finally after much waiting the first flower arrived which meant the vegetable would follow soon, but much to my disappointment, this did eventually die away and fall off the plant.

                                                                                  Photo: Laura Lunt  Date: August 2011

Its now mid September and even thought there are more flowers appearing on all the plants (I have four), due to the cold nips of weather we are starting to get, I'm not holding out for any fruit this year. I have learned a lot from this experience and like my Courgettes, which so far has only produced one vegetable, I will be planting these again next year to see if I can grow them better.

Eating Peppers (Sweet)

When I got home last night, I started to prepare for dinner, thinking I'd cook a nice Stir-fry and I suddenly realised I had no Peppers (Sweet). Then I remembered the two Peppers that have been growing away on the balcony and I popped outside with a knife, chopped them off the Pepper plant and headed inside to clean and cook them.

                                                        Photo: Laura Lunt  Date: August 2011


The Peppers (Sweet) I used were Californian Wonder free from the Garden Kitchen magazine, when picked they were around the size of tennis balls and tasted delicious in the Stir-fry.

Outdoor Peppers

Normally I'd grow my Peppers indoors on a sunny windowsill, along with the Chilies, but they don't seem to really produce a lot of Peppers, so this year I decided to plant them outdoors. As like most things these plants started life as seeds. They were planted in the propagator in early February like all the others and left to germinate.

                                                                     Photo: Laura Lunt  Date: June 2011

Once they got to a good handling size, they were potted into small pots and left to grow to around 10-12cms on a sunny south-east facing windowsill and watered regularly. These were then hardened off, during the day outside and brought in during the night chills, during March / April.

Peppers I've always found are easy to grow just like Chilies and as like, over the many years I have grown these, they grew very quickly again this year. The three Pepper plants have been outside now since mid April, when they were repotted into their larger final pots. These contained multi-purpose compost and water crystals and have been watered at least once a day and feed every 10-14 days, once flowers appeared.

                                                                      Photo: Laura Lunt  Date: August 2011 
Due to the restriction of their pots they have grown to no more than around 30cm and have been flowering for some time now. Along with the flowers I also have at least six Peppers growing, on two of the plants, which are almost the size of golf balls and are a luscious deep green colour.

Pulling Carrots

The time has come, tonight I pulled up the Carrots that have been growing since February. After pushing away some of the dirt surrounding the Carrots to check that they had turned orange, I then slowly pulled one of the Carrots to check it had grown correctly. I was so excited to find they had and then slowly and carefully pulled the rest out.

                                                                                    Photo: Laura Lunt  Date: August 2011

This is the first ever batch I have grown and I chose a small variety just to see if I could grow these in a pot on the balcony. After I pulled these, the Carrots were then washed and the green leaves cut off, I can't wait to cook these and see how they taste.

I already have a new variety ready to start sowing for the winter.

                                                                    Photo: Laura Lunt  Date: August 2011

How to raise new Strawberry Plants from Runners

As you know my Strawberry plants came from Strawberry runners that I bought, in May of this year. As the plants have grown, matured and started to produce fruit, I've noticed one has sent out a new runner stem from its parent plant.

Now I'm not really sure when new plants should be created, I found one site that suggested September - October time, but as we're half way through July and I already have runners coming through, I'm already trying to raise new plants. As instructed by many garden advice websites, I've put well watered multi-purpose compost into some small pots and have placed the Strawberry runner stem on top of this, making sure its touching the soil, so roots are able to grow downwards. Sometimes a U-shaped staple or piece of wire can be used to hold this in place.

                                                                    Photo: Laura Lunt  Date: July 2011

Currently my Strawberry plants are in hanging baskets, so I've come up with an inventive way of attaching the pots with sting to the basket. The string has been wrapped around the edge of the top of the pot, tired off and then looped over the top, making sure that the string is also looped through the hanging basket, before being tired off again to the string around the pot. With the help of the protective netting and/or wire, the stem has stayed in place and enabled the roots to grow into the pots.

Once these have established and have become a lot stronger, I will cut of the stem to the parent and leave them to grow into new health plants.

Baby Sweetcorn Buds

Having just been out to check on the vegetables tonight and to give them a good water, I've just noticed the Baby Sweetcorn is finally starting to come through. So far these around three buds growing, one on each Sweetcorn plant.

                                                                                    Photo: Laura Lunt  Date: July 2011