Balcony Harvest

It’s time for a balcony update! It’s been a great spring and early summer here on the balc. After I wrote this about the story of our balcony, I’ve been watering my little seedlings and accumulating more plants and flowers. The cilantro, lettuce, and pea seedlings grew up and surpassed all my expectations. Only one spinach plant and one basil plant survived. The peas took off so well that they don’t have anywhere else to climb and are folding over on themselves and dying. Right now there are six pea pods growing on there. I just picked the seventh one today. We’ve had the cilantro in black beans, lettuce and spinach in sandwiches and salad, and soon some basil leaves will be ready to be plucked.

I was trying to find some plants that wouldn’t have to be moved to the front of the balcony all the time, but would survive back more toward the door. After the fern plant died, I gave up and moved everything to the front. My primroses were new this year, and they have only flowered once. They seem to be healthy again, so hopefully they will bloom again soon. My impatiens and vincas always flourish, and I have two of those leafy spider plants that are supposed to survive against all odds. We’ll see. 

I had two bleeding heart plants that started off great—I got them because they like shade, and I think they’re beautiful. Oddly one just died after looking fine. The other bloomed once and then looked sickly for awhile. It now looks much better but hasn’t bloomed again.

I only have fertilized once, and it was with a homemade fertilizer—1 tsp Epsom salt in 1 gallon of water. I don’t know if it had anything to do with the bountiful veggie harvest, but maybe.

Here is an update in pictures of the spring and early summer on our balcony. First of, all-- the big story has been the peas.

We sprouted these in plastic bags and planted them.

They just kept growing so I added tomato stakes.

climbing...

These creepers were not jokin' around.

I added strings so they could keep themselves from falling over.

Pods!

I never thought peas would do well on my balcony!

Clark holds the first harvested pod.

Cilantro and basil sprouting

Lettuce and spinach pops up in the window box.

Water can, primrose, impatience, spade, beer

Cilantro and basil transplanted to window box.

Lettuce taking off...

Vincas do well in my shadier window boxes.

...as do impatiens

Yum...we used this on many sandwiches.

One corner

Bleeding heart

Cilantro did well...but only one basil survived

If you build it in miniature on the balcony, they will come.

Yummers. Cilantro in black bean tostados... after that they went to seed.

An inspirational place for watercoloring

Big lettuce harvest

First salad!