In the red

I have something exciting to share :)

I think you might call this shade "a hint of a tint"!

But check this out, this happened over 2 days this week and the others have started going now too...

2 anaheim chillies and one jalapeno....what a beautiful shade of red! Something for the tomatoes to aspire to!

First flowers

There's the very beginnings of some flowers on a lot of my plants, I think over the next week or so I'm going to bore you with lots of pretty pictures. My tomatoes are about 50cm high, and they have started making some buds:

My beans kept growing and growing even past the netting and into the sky. The first one I chopped down is ahead of the rest - it really has put it's energy into the lower leaves. Look what I spotted today:

The top of the chilli plants are looking promising:

And here's the best for last, my first proper flower on the jalapeno plant :)

Tomato Disaster

Bad news folks. It's been really windy here since last night and the balcony has been taking a battering with gusts up to nearly 40mph:

The plants have been standing up to the wind really well up until now, but I'm afraid today one little guy didn't make it. 

It was snapped clean off - you can still see the stem in the growbag. I love how the sun went in just as I took this photo! So there was a rather hasty trip to Wilkinsons and now there's a new accessory on the balcony and two very relieved tomato plants. 

I've put the strawberries in there as well as they are not looking too happy and have also lost a few leaves to the wind. Very very luckily I have one spare tomato plant inside that I hadn't thrown away because I couldn't face it. And don't worry, the greenhouse is very well tied down!!

The story so far (month 1)

It seems like there hasn't been much happening for the last few weeks. My tomato and broccoli seedlings have been the same size for ages, with no new leaves or growth. I wasn't having any luck with the beans. But somethings happened in the last few days and suddenly everything is growing! Here's my wildflowers, mixed salad and rocket:

I'm really excited that it won't be too long before we'll be eating this! I'm chuffed with my broccoli and tomatoes too - they've definitely grown, the stems are thicker and there are some new leaves appearing. Yay! I wonder if they have just been concentrating on growing down rather than up and making roots for a while.

My bean saga continues - the beans really quickly got too tall to be unsupported but I was worried about putting them straight outside in case the change of temperature killed them. So I've just put one out at first - to see if it was ok. I felt so bad leaving it out there all alone in the wind and cold at night while I was tucked up in bed! Luckily, it seems to have survived, although the wind has snapped one of the leaves. 

Poor little test bean

I've also planted some peas, so all in all I'd say that the first month has been quite a success! I'm certainly raising a glass to the balcony garden, it's been fun, relaxing and educational, hopefully next month it will be nutritious as well. :)

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?!