Spring on the Balcony.

Today has been so warm and sunny and lovely.  

This is probably (hopefully!) my last spring with my balcony garden, so I'm appreciating it's pretty spring flowers even more this year!

Do you have spring yet?

Balcony Garden, September 2014.

It's definitely feeling autumnal now, but my little balcony is still giving me some flowers and food!  These little begonias have flowered all summer and are keeping my new garden fairy company (she was a birthday present from a friends mum).

I have a last few strawberries coming.

The green leaves in this planter are a chickpea plant.  I think it's too late in the season for it to actually produce chickpeas but it's nice foliage anyway. 

I moved some chive plants I had growing inside to this trough outside, they seem much happier here.  You can see that my fuchsia is still flowering too, and that I need to sweep up the autumn leaves that keep fluttering onto my balcony from a nearby tree.

I did a late sowing of rainbow chard, and am very pleased they've germinated.  I've never grown it before this year but it's one of my favourites now!

I treated myself to some lilac-y purple pansies as I was passing the greengrocers the other day, they're really pretty and should flower all winter. 

I still have sunflowers flowering too.  I love them! 

How are your gardens?  Are the seasons changing where you are yet?

Balcony Garden, July 2014.

My sunflowers have flowered this month.  They don't grow very tall, because they're grown in pots, but they're taller than anything else on my balcony and are lovely and bright!

My sweet peas and fuchsia are flowering too, and some little pink verbenas and livingstone daisies.  

I have a couple of tomatoes coming on my hanging basket tumbling tomato.  I've been eating little handfuls of strawberries all month too. 

I have been joined on my balcony by a colony of these tiny snails.  I've never seen ones like this before, they look more like pond snails to me.  (I think they might be amber snails, although I don't think my balcony is the very damp habitat they prefer).  I also had the delight of sending a 4 inch long slug for a flight over the railings.  Proof that even if you have a balcony 2 floors up you cannot escape slugs!

How are your gardens doing this year?

Balcony Garden, June 2014.

This is what my balcony garden looks like this summer.  The only things flowering so far are some self seeded lobelia, and a red geranium that I planted last year.  But I have a new pink fuchsia that is just about to flower! 

I have sunflowers and sweet peas in the big pot at the back.  Polyanthuses are in all the little terracotta pots, they have finished flowering for the year now.

There are strawberries in a layered planter, I have about 10 plants, abour 3 different varieties, so I get strawberries at different times through the summer.  

I have three of these hanging baskets on each side of my balcony.  On this side there is a tumbling tomato, a nasturtium and lobelia, and some alpine strawberries.

There are a couple of empty troughs out there, that I'm going to sow some cut and come again lettuce leaves, chives and coriander, spinach, quinoa leaves and rainbow chard.  If I have time for them to grow I might put some chick peas in the hanging baskets on the other side of the balcony.

What are you growing this year?

Also see what I'm growing in my mums garden this year,  my balcony garden last year and my favourite gardening books (in case you were wondering where I got the inspiration to grow quinoa and chick peas!).

Linking up with Flaunt it Friday.

Spring on the Balcony.

Spring has come to my little balcony garden.  It's brought daffodils and lilac crocuses and pink polyanthus and ariculas and a little tiny blue forget me not too.

It's still a little messy (is that one of last years tomatoes on the floor!?), but it's mine and it's colourful and it's had regular bee and butterfly visitors already, so I am pleased with it.

Has spring come to you yet?

Linking up with Frugal Days, Sustainable Ways.

Balcony Garden Update...Sweet Peas, Tomatoes, Strawberries, Garlic...

I finally got organised enough to sort out the pots on my balcony.  Somehow a family of ants has got up onto my balcony and won't give up.  I'm scared of ants (I fell over onto an ant hill as a small child and was covered with a swarm of biting ants), there are loads of them, ruining my plants and becoming interested in climbing up my door and window frames, so they can't stay.  I have tried all sorts of eco methods to get rid of them, and finally resorted to ant powder.  This has mostly worked but the ants that remain have taken up residence in my 3 storey high strawberry tower, and won't leave! 

Anyway, I braved the ants and tackled my pots.  I spent about a fiver on the plant stall on the market on some lobelia, geraniums, begonias and purple snap-dragonish plants!  I've also got some plants I grew from seed, sweet peas, verbena, nasturtiums, sun flowers and mesembryanthemums.  

Here are the mesembryanthemums...they're my favourites, I'm soo glad I grew them!

Sweet peas, grown from seed....

My little rose is on it's 3rd flower this year, one of my pots with begonias and lobelia and ivy.  The yellow flowers and the pink verbena are from last year, I cut them back and left them in the pots and they've come again.

In terms of veg, I have some tomatoes waiting to ripen, lots of strawberries, lettuce (which I have failed to photograph), some spinach and chive seeds sown and waiting to grow.  The garlic is some I planted a couple of months ago from a sprouty bulb in the fridge, the tops went all brown, so I had a root around and found two little bulbs of garlic had grown - they're yummy!

How do your gardens grow?

Linking up with Frugal Days, Sustainable Ways.

Gardening...April...Sowing Seeds and Beautiful Balcony Garden...

Spring has sprung in Mums garden, even though we do have a little bit of snow left!

And I've planted my seeds in Mum's greenhouse.  I've got flowers; sunflowers, livingstone daisies, marigolds, sweet peas, nasturtium, lobelia and verbena.  And veg; mini sweetcorn, broad beans, courgette (I'm trying two varieties this year, black beauty and mikinos), sweet peppers and chick peas.  Hopefully it will be warm enough for them to germinate, and the ground will be warm enough to plant them out.

The courgette mikinos seeds were PINK!  I'm not sure if this is a natural thing, or if there was some sort of special coating on the seeds, I've never seen pink courgette seeds before.

My balcony garden is looking all lovely and spring-y, my daffodils and crocuses have come up, no sign of the snow drop bulbs I planted in my pots though, perhaps they'll come next year.  I bought some daisies and polyanthus too for a bit of extra colour.  I really like sitting on my sofa a looking out on my pretty little garden.

On my balcony, so far, I've seen a centipede, lots of little flies, blue bottles, a spider and a bee!  I wanted to attract insects to my little garden and I'm glad some little creatures have been enjoying it!

I bought myself some solar powered led fairy lights, which twinkle prettily as soon as it gets dark.  They're lovely.

Have you managed to do any gardening yet, hope your weather is better this month!

Garden Bits and Bobs...March...Planting Garlic and a Balcony Pond...

I've been playing on my balcony!  

I took my windowsill veggies (spinach, spring onions and kale, they weren't looking too happy!) and some sprouty garlic from the fridge, and planted them in a pot to put outside...

While I was out there I was sooo happy to see the bulbs I planted are coming up (daffodils, crocus and snowdrops) and my pansies are flowering...

And when I looked closer I noticed the forget me nots I dug up from mums garden last year are flowering too.  Forget me nots are my favourite flower ever. 

Oh yeah, and I made a pond.  Or at least a water feature!  This consists of a £2 plant pot, a solar fountain off ebay and will be filled with some plants nicked from Mums pond when the water warms up a bit.  I'm hoping the water might attract some different insects to my balcony and keep the atmosphere from drying out so much when it's really hot and gets direct sunshine in the summer.

Since then it's done a big, big snow on top of everything (photo includes part of my pink dressing gown sleeve, for your viewing pleasure).  Hope my little plants survive!

Are you doing anything garden-y, or waiting for nicer weather?