Thursday 22 September 2011

Poor Growing Aubergines

Part of creating 'The Little Balcony', was that I wanted to grow vegetables I'd never tried before, so the Aubergine was one of these and I thought it would be a great challenge. I started these off at the same time as most of the other vegetables, but I did have some difficulty with them growing at first, so I placed glass jars (my homemade Cloches) over them during the coolers months of the first part of the year and this did help them to survive, but their growth was still very slow.

                                                                                  Photo: Laura Lunt  Date: July 2011

After months of watering and feeding, they start to grow steadily stronger and by July they were around 20cm tall and looking healthier every day. Finally after much waiting the first flower arrived which meant the vegetable would follow soon, but much to my disappointment, this did eventually die away and fall off the plant.

                                                                                  Photo: Laura Lunt  Date: August 2011

Its now mid September and even thought there are more flowers appearing on all the plants (I have four), due to the cold nips of weather we are starting to get, I'm not holding out for any fruit this year. I have learned a lot from this experience and like my Courgettes, which so far has only produced one vegetable, I will be planting these again next year to see if I can grow them better.


Winter Veg - Arrived and Ready to Plant

All the Winter Vegetables I'm going to attempt to grow this year, have now arrived from Mr Fothergil's and as a little added bonus, they also sent me two free packets of seeds, which they do with every seed order, this is what I have:

                                                                       Photo: Laura Lunt  Date: Sept 2011

Early Purple Wright Garlic x2 buds
Radar Onion Sets x250g
Cabbage Advantage F1 Seeds x100

Free Seeds: Pepper (hot) Hotscotch & Mimulus (extra choice mixed)

I'm looking forward to planting these all out in the next couple of months, which will hopefully mean I'll have some great early Vegetables at the beginning of next Spring.

More Harvesting

Its been a busy time for 'The Little Balcony', I've been harvesting even more vegetables including both Gardeners Delight and Moneymaker Tomatoes, Red Chilies including Inferno and Thai Dragon and all the Baby Sweetcorn, which I may have left a little too late to pick as the kernels are very hard, but I may just try to make popcorn out of this, if not the birds will be getting a treat.


                                                          Photo: Laura Lunt  Date: Sept 2011

These plenty more Tomatoes currently rippening away outside, which I'll be turning into a great sauce to store away and use over the winter months, as well as some great chutney and I have a great recipe for chili jam which I'll be using the Chilies for.

Of course all the recipes will be in the cook book.

Sunday 11 September 2011

First Courgette & Gardeners Delight Tomatoes

I've finally managed to grow a fully formed Courgette. After loosing the first two, which for some reason decided not to develop, I noticed over the last week that I had one which had managed to grow to around 10cms and this was picked this morning along with a batch of Gardeners Delight Tomatoes, which have been slowly been turning red for the last 10 days or so.

                                                                     Photo: Laura Lunt  Date: Sept 2011

Tuesday 6 September 2011

Strawberries Over Winter

I've been a little puzzled about what to do with my Strawberry plants over the winter months, as most Strawberry plants have a life cycle of 3 to 4 years and as Strawberries are perennial plants, so will die back and re-grow the following year, I wondered if the harsh winters we have would effect them much. After a little research and some advice from the gardeners on the UK Veg Gardeners website, I've come up with a plan.

Last night I headed out onto the balcony and began to remove the netting and homemade brackets I made to hold the netting up, I then removed all the straw from inside the baskets, which has been protecting the Strawberries while they grow and I also started to cut off all the old withering or dead leaves. There were a few Strawberry runners still trying to establish from the mother plant, one of these was ready to be removed, which I did, but the other two still needs a little more time, so these have been left on.

As to what happens next, for now I've left the baskets hanging where they have been all summer, but once the weather starts to get a little colder, I'll remove these and place them in a sheltered place from the bitter wind and any snow we may get this winter.

One of the things I did read about is that Strawberry plants can also be covered with mulch (normally for ground plot based plants), straw or cloche's (poly tunnel, plastic or glass jars, fleece etc...) for a little added protection. As I have a lot of straw and I'm also planning on buying some cloche's for other delicate plants, I may also do this just to make sure they get through the winter safely.

Thursday 1 September 2011

Red Tomatoes - Gardeners Delight

Having come home from being away this bank holiday weekend, I popped on to the balcony to check how the vegetables were doing and I spotted my first Gardeners Delight Tomatoes turning red.

                                                                                     Photo: Laura Lunt  Date: August 2011