Tuesday, May 19, 2009

Balcony Garden

As I said, our balcony is covered - it gets full shade after the morning. After researching, I found out that my best chances for food success were leaf & root crops. Personal preference led me to heritage and organic varieties, so I planted an organic 'pot lettuce' mix, 'Grand Champion' Collards, 'Early Wonder Tall Top' beets, and 'Derby Day' cabbage. The experimental volunteer is the organic garlic I bought for cooking, until it sprouted - so it's in the dirt, and we'll see how it goes. The existing plants are chocolate mint, prostrate rosemary (it smells wonderful!) and chives.

So far, the herbs are happy, the lettuce is a happy tangled mess, and the collards & cabbage are doing well. The garlic is just peeking it's tips above the soil. The beets would have been much happier, I think, if I had read the directions right and planted them 8 weeks earlier than I did - for some reason I missed the 'plant 6 weeks before last frost' on the package, and planted them after that. Ah well.

3 comments:

  1. I am not sure if i know the frost times in my area.. how one would tell this? is it something you can find in a calendar or in the weather forecasts' websites?

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  2. thank you for posting this. will pass this blog onto my DD, her apt. is similar to yours. Balcony and morning sun.

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  3. You should be able to Google them, or you can check an almanac. That's where I got mine. The weather sites may have it as well.

    aksunflour... hope your DD enjoys the blog. Thank you!

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