Prep for the 2012 Balcony

One of my first planned jobs for the 2012 balcony garden, which I've been doing over the last two weeks, has been to create a list of all the seeds I've been collecting. These have either been bought or have come free in garden magazines.

I've collated them all into a handy excel growing chart (this does look better in excel), along with the last year of sowing, best sowing and planning out months and when to harvest, see chart below:

Hopefully the chart is going to come in very handy, when I start sowing seeds for the New Year and also in planning what I can grow over the months ahead. I'm hoping I can keep a steady supply of vegetables growing this year, as last year I only tended to sow a few things at the beginning of the year and then not a lot after that, until the Autumn / Winter months started.

Prep will soon start on sowing Aubergines, Peppers (sweet), Chili Peppers (Thai Dragon / Tabasco / Inferno), Sweet Peas and Tomatoes, once I've had a quick trip to the local garden centre for new compost and maybe a few more Leeks, though I already have a few overwintering at the moment, there may be room for a few more.

New Wooden Seed Box

As my seed collection has been growing and growing over the last year, I've been keeping these in a small plastic box along with other useful garden impliments, such as string, veg labels etc. So I've been considering buying a new seed box, now I did add this to my Christmas list, but it didn't seem to make it under the tree.

Since then I've had a quick scout around on a few of my favorite gardening sites and they all seemed a little steap in price, even in the sales. But luckerly, I noticed in my office that the packaging from a wine box gift set was going to be thrown away, which I decided to grab, so instead of buying one, I decided to recycle this box and use it instead. The wooden box has a sliding lid and inside it is divided into two, with just enough room to fit seed packets in.

                                                          Photo: Laura Lunt  Date: 11/01/12

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.