My little balcony garden

Good afternoon (morning? evening? Wherever you are, I hope you are well!)

It was brought to my attention today (by myself) that I have not written a blog post in FAR too long. So here I am. And I have a very exciting endeavor to share with all of you. This project has been in the works for maybe 6 weeks now and will hopefully go well into next September. I present to you: my garden!

Yes. I have a garden. A very tiny one, but it's there and I love it. 

Me and bestie, Sam, decided forever ago we wanted to plant a garden in her yard in the summer. And anyone who knows us knows that when we get an idea for something, we usually get a BIT overambitious and plan everything all at once and go a bit nuts then kind of forget about it as we've begun obsessing over something new.

Anyway, we went through with the garden idea. Sometime in March, I went and got a window box and some soil and seeds and decided I was going to plant a small herb garden for the balcony. That weekend, I set out on the balcony, read the instructions on the seeds and planted them. In retrospect, it was too early to plant as we were still getting very cold evenings and I was almost certain it was all going to be a bust.



I was wrong. Those suckers grew like weeds. My basil, however, is a different story. It's been a slow start. It is still very, very small but I think it's because I planted the soil to deep into the pot and it's not getting enough sun as the edge of the pot is casting a shadow on the inside of the pot. But there is a tiny seedling and it's been getting plenty of sun now.

A few weeks later, Sam and I decided to plant some starters for her garden and I decided to start two more window boxes, one with kale and one with lettuce. I also accidentally bought three tomato plants. OOPS!

We ended up also planting a window box full of radishes and starting some onions and cukes in little canisters. I also plan on growing some garlic over the winter in the window boxes.

So there's a background on the garden and here is a list of pointers I have put together as a first time gardener.

1: Water your plants in the evening or morning (Sam just told me this). Watering mid day means the plants have had to weather the hot sun of the morning, turning the leaves yellow and possibly burning them. 

2: Eggshell fertilizer! I just smashed a bunch of eggshells with a fork and spread them onto the herb garden. It seems to have worked very well as they are growing out of control.

3: Try to keep the water you're using the water your garden around the same temperature as it is outside (even better, try to keep it outside to let it sit and get to temperature) 

4: Enjoy your garden! I can't tell you how many times I sat out on the balcony and thought there was no way I was going to get any cucumber plants. Then all of a sudden, in a matter of hours, most of them had poked out of the soil. After two weeks of waiting, patiently and daily watering, I was SO happy to see those guys make an appearance.

5: Thin your plants once they are a bit bigger. I tend to oversow because I get paranoid they aren't all going to take. You want to make sure the vegetables (especially root veggies like beets and radishes) get enough space to get to size before you harvest them. I've also heard if you don't thin radishes they get very bitter. I'm not taking any chances.

I've had so many people comment on my instagram and twitter asking me to teach them my green thumb ways, so there's most of it. Honestly, it was basically getting the supplies, reading the seed packets and doing a little bit of research online. 

Share your gardening tips in the comments! Do you have a garden?