Updates on my veggies and strawberries

First, let's see how the old ones are doing.

The only bad thing about the strawberries is that the fruit ripe one at a time :)

We have tomatoes! Some (Venus) are a little bigger, but the cherry tomatoes are also alive and well.

Also, the cucumber is blooming like crazy but so far only 2 female flowers. I am hand-pollinating them to make sure i get cucumbers.
I also planted some new gherkin seedlings, but those are small yet.

Mini-cauliflower

Red bell pepper

Potato in a bucket

Eggplant flowering

Hot peppers - Habanero Fatalii

I really have trouble arranging pictures in the right spot in this blog :D
As you can see, summer is in full swing and I just LOVE everything!


And because I have an addiction to online shopping, of course I bought new plants - flowers this time. I will make another port about those.

New plants and new crops

I have to admit I am addicted to plant buying :)
Pretty soon I will run out of space in the sunny spots, but I am counting on the fact that some of the other things I planted will be done and I can re-use some of the containers/spots. So, when it comes to new stuff I planted, I have cucumbers (gherkin type because they make smaller cucumbers and are easier to grow in pots), a new type of PURPLE beans because they look funny and a horned African cucumber (that is supposed to taste strange) called Kiwano.

I also bought a Cranberry plant (Merisor), a hybrid between a raspberry and a strawberry called japanese Framberry and a  Honeyberry (Boaba de miere). 

 

I gave up on the spinach for now, I'll try again when it's colder. 

I am also very happy that my strawberries are having fruits - same with the beans. Now I realise that I actually don't like green beans at all :)) but it's so nice that they are growing. 

 

My tomatoes and my cucumbers are also doing very well, even if for the last few days it has been cold and raining. The tomatoes are flowering :)

 

Time for updates - part three - veggies and greens

The vegetables are a big part of my garden.

 so I decided to add some new seeds to the pots.

The two types of beans I have are doing  well,

Remember the tomato seeds? 

These are the tomatoes and the cucumbers now.

Spinach

Mint

Basil

I also got some cauliflowers and two larger tomato plants. In the top left you can see the garlic and onions. For some reason, the garlic stopped growing :(

Also, I planted a potato and it grew like a weed :)) I realised it was getting far too tall very late so now I have a potato that is almost a meter tall :)) On its left are the white radishes.

 

I planted some bettroot a few days ago

Vegetables

This is a big category and the main reason I started to garden in my balcony :)

I am growing carrots, radishes, white icicles, two types of beans, green onions and I recently started with cucumbers and tomatoes.

These are the carrots. I chose a deep rectangular pot for them, to allow for room for the roots to grow. However, I realised after they sprouted that I added far too many seeds, but I didn't have the heart to thin them, so I'll wait and see what will happen.

I bought random seeds from the Hypermarket and they sprouted really fast in regular potting soil.
It's important to plant them where you will let them grow, because you can't transplant the carrots.

I keep them on the balcony edge and water them every day, because potting soil dries up fast especially if it's outside, in the wind.

They seem to grow slowly, but I am happy with the result so far.

I also have two pots with what we call "one month radishes" - the seeds are supposed to turn into full grown radishes about 6 weeks.

Same type of pot - deeper to allow the radish to grow below.
I didn't make the same mistake with these, I added fewer seeds and thinned them out a little once they sprouted.

I did notice that, compared to the radishes grown in a garden, the stems of these are very slim and breakable. It might be because of the soil or it might be because of the lack of light.
Not sure, but I'll wait and see what results I get.

I planted these about 4 weeks ago and they seem to be dong well - I also water them everyday, for the same reason (potting soil dries really fast).

These are the two types of beans I have. I planted them at the same time, but the green version sprouted later. I plan to add a support for the yellow type once it grows more leaves, as it's supposed to be the climbing type.
Like you can see in the left, I usually put a plastic bottle over the seeds until they get some serious leaves, to help them grow (it keeps the humidity, protects it from air currents and keeps a higher temperature).

These are the white icicles (as far as I can tell, it's a mix between carrots and radishes). I don't remember ever eating those, but my sisters gave me the seeds and I said I'll try to grow them.

Same type of deep pot used for carrots and radishes. I also thinned them once they sprouted.

They don't seem to need much direct sun, these grew very fast on the opposite side of the windows (about 3 meters away).

From what I read on Pinterest, the root plants (the ones that grow the edible part below ground) don't need as much sun as tomatoes for example.




The green onions I planted two days ago, from seed onions.
I tried to grow them from sprouted onions (Pinterest recommended using kitchen scraps as a way to build a windowsill garden, but they failed miserably - see below :p).

Now I have a large quantity of seed onions planted, so I'll come back later with updates.

I tried to plant them in a rectangular pot with less soil, so they have a way to go until the edge - I don't need them to grow to mature onions, I like the green type better and I hope the room they have will protect them from air currents until they are stronger. I keep them on the balcony edge also and water them every day. I bought the seed onions from Leroy Merlin (home improvement store), it was about 1 euro/500 g. 

Like I mentioned at the start, I recently started cucumbers and tomatoes from seeds and let me tell you, it was unexpected that they actually sprouted :))

Behold my seedling kit! 

Those are the tomato seedling - they reached this stage in about a week. I have very little hope of being able to grow those tomato plants, mostly because I don't have enough sun in my balcony. Also, I chose the wrong type of seeds, the tomatoes are far too big to grow in a pot.

But I also bought seeds for cherry tomatoes and I'll try with those as soon as I manage to buy more soil and adequate pots for them.

The cucumbers grew faster and yesterday I moved them to their own pots with the supports I improvised (in the second picture you can also see the current state of the cherry stick, because I can't call it a tree yet :p).

I'm pretty sure I'll have trouble with the type of cucumbers I planted, these seem to be the large type. I also have seeds for the gherkins (the smaller size used for pickles) and I'll start those when I start the cherry tomatoes.

On to the leafy greens!