Unhappy campers

My strawberries are not happy. And I am not happy with them. I was wondering why they were producing lots of new leaves but no flowers, so I did some googling, and it appears that strawberries don't produce any fruit in the first year, which is a shame. I am recovering from this disappointment but I don't think the strawberries are. All the older leaves are brown / purple, dry and curling up, and the newer leaves are covered in some sort of white dust. The plants are producing lots of new lovely green leaves, but after a while they all turn like this. Does anyone know what's going on? Are they doomed?

And the broccoli (which I admit was planted without really thinking about what it needed & where it would go) is not happy either. The bottom leaves are drying out and dying, the whole thing has a rather unhealthy hue, although I suppose that this might be normal. They haven't grown much at all. To be honest I am tempted to throw them out. If anyone would like to make an argument on behalf of the broccoli, please do, or else it will be the big compost heap in the sky for them!

Leggy Broccoli

Bless my little broccoli. I think they got the feeling they weren't quite planned...so they grew and grew and grew. They grew so fast, and with my lack of knowledge I didn't know to get them into the light quickly so they have turned out rather tall, which is apparently not a desirable trait in a broccoli. Still, they seem healthy, of all the things I have planted they are certainly the most enthusiastic and I love them for that. I've been researching it, and it seems that you can replant the seedlings deeper in the soil to fix the problem, so that's what I've done. Here's the before and after,

The long and the short of it

The first real planting

Well, it's been a busy day on the balcony today. There's lots to tell you about. First things first, I have planted out some wildflower mix (so that some bees will come to visit) and in another pot, some mixed salad and rocket. I'm not sure how big these will grow - I'm a little worried that I have put too many seeds in there, but I figured that I could always pull some out.

I never believe anything will actually grow at this point..

My mum has given me this great pot for strawberries - perfect for space saving on the balcony. It holds 6 plants, and I've got 5 in there. I think the strawberries are the thing I'm most excited about growing. I always have a debate with myself about whether I like strawberries, raspberries or blackberries best, and I still haven't decided, but it doesn't matter - they are all amazing. Strawberries seem to be the easiest to grow of the 3 so that's what I've started with. 

Hands off, pigeons

I've moved some tomatoes and broccoli out of the seed trays and into small pots. It was such a delicate procedure, I was so worried about damaging them! I held them by the leaves and levered them out with a pencil. A few hours on the tomatos are looking fine, the broccoli is looking slightly peaky. I not sure I haven't moved them on too early, they had hardly any roots. I've kept the others (and there's loads) in the seed tray as a backup in case this all goes pear shaped.

Lastly, I got some new beans from poundland and I have planted those straight into pots. Let's hope this works. I wonder if beans are going to be my gardening nemesis. That would be pretty embarrasing, I remember beans were something we grew at school when I was little!

There's life, Jim!

You won't guess what's happened. Well, actually you probably will - but my broccoli has started coming up - there's actual plants growing! Half of my seed tray is full of tiny green and white shoots. It started yesterday, and there was only a few, but now most of the tray has one or two little plants coming up. I feel really proud!!

However, the tomato side of the tray is doing nothing at all. Should tomatoes take longer? I'm seeing a slight flaw in my plan of planting two different vegetables in the same tray. So I've put the broccoli side out in the light and covered the tomato side with a folder to keep it dark.

I have taken to checking the tomato side of my tray morning, noon and night for any sign of life. I'm speaking encouraging words to it, and trying to start a little friendly competition among vegetables. Here are the little broccolis (or is the plural of broccoli just broccoli?) in all their tiny glory. I'm chuffed.

Aren't they splendid?!