The Little Balcony 2012

As regular readers of The Little Balcony will know, I started documenting the coming and goings of balcony growing life through my blog, in early June of last year. Our new London flat's balcony was a great little experiment to try and see what could and could not grow, having only ever had a very tiny balcony before this one, I through myself into this and six months on, I have learned so much more than I ever through I would.

The New Year is now upon us and this year I want to take everything I learned from last year and make the balcony even better, this year. Planning has already begun, with a stock check of seeds and I've been keeping a close eye on the Onions, Garlic, Cabbage, Carrots and Leeks which have been overwintered from late last year, along with the Strawberry Runners. I would have preferred a colder winter, maybe even some snow to help everything a long, but I keep peeking outside and they all seem to be doing well regardless.

Vegetable sowing and growing plans are in the early stages, while doing the seed stock check; I've also been putting a growing chart together for what I have also, so I'm able to plan out the best way to fit all of the different crops into the balcony. I'm not giving any hints away as of yet, but there will be some second goes at vegetables that didn't grow very well last year and a few new ones that I've been desperate it try out.

As for the cook book, I really must say that last year I didn't do a lot on this, as I wanted to concentrate more on the balcony and seeing what I could grow. Having taken the time to do this, as well as using all the vegetables grown to test out recipes, I'm now ready to start putting the first draft together and I'll hopefully have the book complete soon.