Friday 29 July 2011
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Thursday 21 July 2011
The Creation of the Cook Book
The idea behind The Little Balcony blog came from the idea that I wanted to create a cook book. I love cooking and I have so many recipes cut out of magazines, scribbled down ingredients from TV shows I've seen. Not to mention the small collections of cook books I already own, some of which hold some of my most favorite dishes, which I've adapted over the years to my own tast.
But also being a keen and not so adventurous vegetable gardener, usually only tomatoes, herbs, chili and peppers and the odd strawberry plant. I though I might see how hard it was to grow more exciting fruit and vegetables and use these in the recipes I had started to put together for the cook book, from the large selection I'd collected over the years and the many recipes my mother has taught me.
Having only a small balcony I knew this would be a challenge, but I started to buy the 'Grow Your Own' garden magazine, plus others, which sometimes come with free seeds, as well the RHS book 'Vegetables in a Small Garden' and I started to put a plan together to see which fruit and vegetables were suitable to grow in pots, planters and hanging baskets and this is how The Little Balcony blog and cook book started.
Now I can't take credit for the name, this came from my boyfriend Zac, but all the balcony garden planning and growing I have done, except the chilies. Having decided to create a book, I did a lot of research on creating your own book and remembered a friend had done this with a website called BLURB, I registered with them. I then spent sometime looking at other peoples designs on the site and decided I wanted to create a cook book of easy recipes that could be cooked any day of the week and would appeal to everybody.
Slowly I started to create a list of dishes and before I knew it I had nearly 40 recipes, ranging from starters to deserts as well as jams, dressings and drinks and all of which contain ingredients that I could grow on my balcony. I also started to develop a strong idea of how I visually saw the book. Now I'm not going to give too much away, but the ideas for the page designs slowly came to me, so from having an idea of what I wanted to appear on the pages I started to plan what I could grow and recorded this through this blog.
But also being a keen and not so adventurous vegetable gardener, usually only tomatoes, herbs, chili and peppers and the odd strawberry plant. I though I might see how hard it was to grow more exciting fruit and vegetables and use these in the recipes I had started to put together for the cook book, from the large selection I'd collected over the years and the many recipes my mother has taught me.
Having only a small balcony I knew this would be a challenge, but I started to buy the 'Grow Your Own' garden magazine, plus others, which sometimes come with free seeds, as well the RHS book 'Vegetables in a Small Garden' and I started to put a plan together to see which fruit and vegetables were suitable to grow in pots, planters and hanging baskets and this is how The Little Balcony blog and cook book started.
Now I can't take credit for the name, this came from my boyfriend Zac, but all the balcony garden planning and growing I have done, except the chilies. Having decided to create a book, I did a lot of research on creating your own book and remembered a friend had done this with a website called BLURB, I registered with them. I then spent sometime looking at other peoples designs on the site and decided I wanted to create a cook book of easy recipes that could be cooked any day of the week and would appeal to everybody.
Slowly I started to create a list of dishes and before I knew it I had nearly 40 recipes, ranging from starters to deserts as well as jams, dressings and drinks and all of which contain ingredients that I could grow on my balcony. I also started to develop a strong idea of how I visually saw the book. Now I'm not going to give too much away, but the ideas for the page designs slowly came to me, so from having an idea of what I wanted to appear on the pages I started to plan what I could grow and recorded this through this blog.
Monday 18 July 2011
How to raise new Strawberry Plants from Runners
As you know my Strawberry plants came from Strawberry runners that I bought, in May of this year. As the plants have grown, matured and started to produce fruit, I've noticed one has sent out a new runner stem from its parent plant.
Now I'm not really sure when new plants should be created, I found one site that suggested September - October time, but as we're half way through July and I already have runners coming through, I'm already trying to raise new plants. As instructed by many garden advice websites, I've put well watered multi-purpose compost into some small pots and have placed the Strawberry runner stem on top of this, making sure its touching the soil, so roots are able to grow downwards. Sometimes a U-shaped staple or piece of wire can be used to hold this in place.
Photo: Laura Lunt Date: July 2011
Currently my Strawberry plants are in hanging baskets, so I've come up with an inventive way of attaching the pots with sting to the basket. The string has been wrapped around the edge of the top of the pot, tired off and then looped over the top, making sure that the string is also looped through the hanging basket, before being tired off again to the string around the pot. With the help of the protective netting and/or wire, the stem has stayed in place and enabled the roots to grow into the pots.
Once these have established and have become a lot stronger, I will cut of the stem to the parent and leave them to grow into new health plants.
Now I'm not really sure when new plants should be created, I found one site that suggested September - October time, but as we're half way through July and I already have runners coming through, I'm already trying to raise new plants. As instructed by many garden advice websites, I've put well watered multi-purpose compost into some small pots and have placed the Strawberry runner stem on top of this, making sure its touching the soil, so roots are able to grow downwards. Sometimes a U-shaped staple or piece of wire can be used to hold this in place.
Currently my Strawberry plants are in hanging baskets, so I've come up with an inventive way of attaching the pots with sting to the basket. The string has been wrapped around the edge of the top of the pot, tired off and then looped over the top, making sure that the string is also looped through the hanging basket, before being tired off again to the string around the pot. With the help of the protective netting and/or wire, the stem has stayed in place and enabled the roots to grow into the pots.
Once these have established and have become a lot stronger, I will cut of the stem to the parent and leave them to grow into new health plants.
Baby Sweetcorn Buds
Having just been out to check on the vegetables tonight and to give them a good water, I've just noticed the Baby Sweetcorn is finally starting to come through. So far these around three buds growing, one on each Sweetcorn plant.
Photo: Laura Lunt Date: July 2011
Friday 15 July 2011
Carrots All Year Around
Known to be one of the easiest vegetable to grow, I thought I'd have a try at growing Carrots this year. Now as I noticed when I headed down to my local garden center, these a very large selection of Carrot seeds, all shapes, sizes and not always the traditional orange colour. As I've never grown these before I went for a small variety called, Carrot Atlas.
As with all of my other seeds, these were sown in mid February, in the propagator. Not really knowing how many seeds to sow as they are very small, I just added a small sprinkle to five of the sections in the propagator and hoped for the best. As the weeks went by small little shoots started to show, once they grew to a suitable handling length, around March / April, these were then planted straight outside into a tall pot of multi-Purpose compost, with water crystals added and were then well watered.
From this point on I just kind of left them to it. They do say you should thin these out, to stop the carrots growing too close together, I did do this a little but I found the weaker shoots tended to die off naturally and of course I've watered these at least every day if not every other day. Plus I've fed with tomato feed every 10-14 days.
Photo: Laura Lunt Date: July 2011
We're now in mid July and they seem to have grown very well, my last look saw a count of around eight Carrots popping out, they have also just started to turn orange underground and I hope they will be ready to pull soon.
Winter Carrots - I've already been researching a winter Carrot variety that I can start planting in Mid Autumn, Carrot Nando Seeds, I'm hoping to order these soon and start prepping for Christmas Carrots for the family.
As with all of my other seeds, these were sown in mid February, in the propagator. Not really knowing how many seeds to sow as they are very small, I just added a small sprinkle to five of the sections in the propagator and hoped for the best. As the weeks went by small little shoots started to show, once they grew to a suitable handling length, around March / April, these were then planted straight outside into a tall pot of multi-Purpose compost, with water crystals added and were then well watered.
From this point on I just kind of left them to it. They do say you should thin these out, to stop the carrots growing too close together, I did do this a little but I found the weaker shoots tended to die off naturally and of course I've watered these at least every day if not every other day. Plus I've fed with tomato feed every 10-14 days.
We're now in mid July and they seem to have grown very well, my last look saw a count of around eight Carrots popping out, they have also just started to turn orange underground and I hope they will be ready to pull soon.
Winter Carrots - I've already been researching a winter Carrot variety that I can start planting in Mid Autumn, Carrot Nando Seeds, I'm hoping to order these soon and start prepping for Christmas Carrots for the family.
Wednesday 13 July 2011
My First Batch of Strawberries
After much waiting, I've slowly been enjoying the first couple of batches of plump red strawberries, that have finally grown and were really for picking. Now I haven't had millions, but the seven I've cut down have been delicious and I have a few more starting to turn already, with many more growing. Below is batch one.
Date: July 2011 Photo: Laura Lunt
Friday 8 July 2011
New to Baby Sweetcorn Growing
When I mentioned to a friend I was growing corn, they seemed to think it would be impossible, now I did explain this was actually Baby Sweetcorn not your normal Corn on the Cob type, but they still seemed to have the opinion that it wouldn't grow as we don't get enough sun in England.
As like most of my seeds, the Baby Sweetcorn started off growing in the propagator in early February and once they grew to a suitable handling size, they were then, replanted in small pots and left to grow to around 10cms. These were then hardened off, planted and well watered into a larger pot on the Balcony.
As the months went by out of the five plants originally grown, only three survived, at first they needed a little support, so green garden sticks were carefully and loosely tired to the plants, but later were not needed, as the larger they became the less they needed this.
Not knowing really how to care for Baby Sweetcorn, I've treated them the same as my tomato plants and watered as much as possible, everyday if not every other day and also fed these with tomato feed every 10-14 days. So far so good as they've continued to grow and thinking they'd never produce any vegetables at all, after checking the top inside leaves last weekend, you can now see the corn developing.
As like most of my seeds, the Baby Sweetcorn started off growing in the propagator in early February and once they grew to a suitable handling size, they were then, replanted in small pots and left to grow to around 10cms. These were then hardened off, planted and well watered into a larger pot on the Balcony.
As the months went by out of the five plants originally grown, only three survived, at first they needed a little support, so green garden sticks were carefully and loosely tired to the plants, but later were not needed, as the larger they became the less they needed this.
Photo: Laura Lunt Date: June 2011
Not knowing really how to care for Baby Sweetcorn, I've treated them the same as my tomato plants and watered as much as possible, everyday if not every other day and also fed these with tomato feed every 10-14 days. So far so good as they've continued to grow and thinking they'd never produce any vegetables at all, after checking the top inside leaves last weekend, you can now see the corn developing.
Strawberry Runners for Beginners
Strawberries are one of my favorite fruits to eat and I always loved the summer, when my Mum would grow these. Last year I decided to grow two small plants I bought from a local garden centre in a hanging basket I had, they grew fine, but this year I wanted to grow more.
I opted for the Strawberry 'Alice' variety from Thompson and Morgan, these came as runners, now I had no idea what a runner was, so after some quick internet research, I sort of understood what these were and how to plant these, for when they arrived. Luckily when they did arrive in early march, they had long roots and I was able to plant them up straightaway in the hanging baskets.
I started with a fresh basket liner, then I added multi purpose compost with water crystals mixed into each of these and then planted 6 runners in each basket, three around the outside of the basket and three in the top of the basket. These were then given a good soaking of water and hung up on the sides of the Balcony.
Photo: Laura Lunt Date: June 2011
Within weeks they started to flourish, out of the twelve plants I only lost one, which isn't bad and once these started to grow to a substantial size straw was placed around the inside of the baskets and I created a bamboo bracket that I attached to the top of the basket wall bracket and then attached fruit netting to this, to protect then from birds.
As these continued to grow I did start to notice they were becoming covered with small green insects (aphids), again I when back to the internet had a little bit of a browse and found a homemade soapy solution I could use on these to get rid of them, see Tips of the Day section.
Photo: Laura Lunt Date: July 2011
Much to my delight we are now in the beginning of July and both of the baskets have produced a great first batch of Strawberries, which are currently turning a ruby red colour.
I opted for the Strawberry 'Alice' variety from Thompson and Morgan, these came as runners, now I had no idea what a runner was, so after some quick internet research, I sort of understood what these were and how to plant these, for when they arrived. Luckily when they did arrive in early march, they had long roots and I was able to plant them up straightaway in the hanging baskets.
I started with a fresh basket liner, then I added multi purpose compost with water crystals mixed into each of these and then planted 6 runners in each basket, three around the outside of the basket and three in the top of the basket. These were then given a good soaking of water and hung up on the sides of the Balcony.
Within weeks they started to flourish, out of the twelve plants I only lost one, which isn't bad and once these started to grow to a substantial size straw was placed around the inside of the baskets and I created a bamboo bracket that I attached to the top of the basket wall bracket and then attached fruit netting to this, to protect then from birds.
As these continued to grow I did start to notice they were becoming covered with small green insects (aphids), again I when back to the internet had a little bit of a browse and found a homemade soapy solution I could use on these to get rid of them, see Tips of the Day section.
Much to my delight we are now in the beginning of July and both of the baskets have produced a great first batch of Strawberries, which are currently turning a ruby red colour.
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