And now for the second half of the monster progress post.
The view outside:
Planted two types of French marigold, Naughty and Red Marietta. Supposedly the aphids don’t like them, but I wish they’d grow a bit faster. Repotted the lavenders and they’ve gone from grey to green and lo and behold, the first ever flower bud has appeared at last. Next to those are this year’s purple and red carrots. Then the Swiss chard, some peaky coriander from Tesco, rock samphire that’s just out from under a cloche, a cute little sage plant and some possibly sickly chives.
The purple carrots we planted too late last year are having a bit of a renaissance after being dug up and spaced out a bit better in the grow bag, and the compost replaced with better soil. Don’t think the roots have actually grown much. Have read that year old carrots aren’t good for much except for seed. Which is fine.
The folks have several giant fennel bushes in their garden wilderness and because they spread ridiculously they gave me a couple that seemed to have died, but one has valiantly come back. (The other, sadly, remains quite dead).
The corner of neglect. No amount of swanky filters can cover that up unfortunately. Luckily there’s not a lot to be done with the potatoes we planted in Feb after cleaning out the failed bag from last year. They shot up very quickly and we managed to do the covering up with soil thing as they grew. Also in shot, some ugly brown storage containers and one of the balcony chairs that could really do with a facelift. A project for the coming months I think.
Almost didn’t include this, the shame. The Swiss chards we planted in one of these troughs all died when they went outside so decided to space the surviving onions out a bit better. Looking a bit weedy though, think it was a bit cold and stormy when they went outside a month ago and this past week have had too much sun and not enough water.
But on a brighter note:
Spotted! Heron having a bit of an aul preen across the stream.
Found some cute little solar powered beach house lights at Homebase. Might put them outside to replace the broken ladybird and bee lights from last year.
And finally:
Bonus! Not stuff with stems, but recently found my fossil collection from when I was little. Once knew what all these actually were. Seems a shame to have them tucked away in a box. Looking for ideas how to display them in our Ikea FABRIKÖR cabinet (can just see it above)
Signing off for now, coming up soon, unnecessary balcony cooking (and hopefully not setting fire to the potato plants) (strictly speaking, it’s diy camping stoves and we’re probably not going to cook anything, just attempt to boil some water perhaps to prove that we can, but to all intents and purposes – balcony cooking). Also, some ridiculous attempts at keeping plants alive and watered when you’re going away and are too wimpy to ask the neighbours.
balcony d8 