It's a start!

It is with great satisfaction that I can finally say we've started on our balcony garden! After all this time, we can finally do it. Not that there's anything on the balcony itself, yet. We'll need to pick up pots and soil and figure out where we want to put things, which will have to work around the other uses we'll have for the balcony, like the bbq that we need to replace and the seating we want to arrange. We now have a south facing balcony, with long hours of sunlight, which fixes one problem we had before. More important, though, we expect to actually *be* here long enough to start doing stuff like this!

For now, I've got a tray of 72 starter pellets planted with cooking herbs. I've got 6 of rosemary and another 6 of tarragon (which Eldest wanted in particular - she loves cookinig with tarragon). These can grow pretty big, so if they all sprout, it'll be more than we actually need. I'm sure, if it becomes an issue, we'll have neighbours willing to enjoy them. ;-) I planted a dozen pellets with chives, and another dozen of thyme. That should be enough for drying, too. Finally, I planted 18 pellets each of parsley (plain leaved) and basil (Sweet Genovese), as these are herbs we would use larger quantities of. The entire tray now sits on top of an aquarium that we have, but won't be setting up for a while yet, which gives them enough light for sprouting while keeping them out of reach of the cats! :-D

Along with the herbs, I've got some greens that will be sown directly into their pots, which I still need to pick up. I got some spinach (Epinard), romain lettuce and mixed red and green leaf lettuce. These I will have to find a way to keep in the area of the balcony that gets more shade. Which means we'll have to figure out where to put the patio swing we inherited with the unit. I also got some carrots - Amsterdam 3 - Sprint, an heirloom variety that's supposed to be good for container gardens. I think that should be good enough for this year. Depending on how things work out, I'd like to increase the vegetables a lot more. Perhaps some peas and beans - we have a wall we can train them up against - or even some strawberries, raspberries or grapes. There are some dwarf varieties of other veggies I'd like to try out.

When I picked up my seeds, I talked to one of the staff about container gardening on our balcony. He was a very young guy, and passionate about gardening. He told me how a lot more people have been getting the raspberry, blackberry and grapes for growing on their balconies. I guess it takes a recession to get a lot of people thinking about stuff like this. I think that'll make it better overall, as more varieties of seeds, etc. are becoming available to meet the demand. This is the first year I've seen vegetable seed varieties specifically for container gardening. With so many people living in apartments and condos instead of houses with yards, it's good to see these things available.

My big challenge is going to be pots. I'll be using the balcony rail a lot - if I can get the type of pots I'm after, I should be able to do all the herbs on or over the rail itself. I'll need shallow, wide tray-like pots for the leaf lettuces, deep pots for the carrots, and either wider pots or several of them for the romaine.

It should be fun!