Planning for the future

I am so longing for a real garden. At the moment I am making plans in the back of my mind as to what I want in it, when it happens. These are based on the idea that most likely we will live in a ground-floor flat, potentially with restrictions on what you are allowed to do with your patch (open plan gardens are quite popular here in apartment blocks). This would mean mostly container gardening still. So, with that restriction in mind, here are my thoughts so far.

We need a large patch of grass for Froglet and Nutmeg to run about on. That will probably be most of the garden in the above scenario.

I want to grow things that are pretty but also edible, to begin with.
First on my list of priorities are nasturtiums, probably in hanging baskets. I'd love to set up at least two of the baskets on pulleys so they can be lowered for the children to take care of them - an idea I found in How Does Your Garden Grow, which suggested planting them alongside miniature carrots. Worth a try.
Secondly, tomatoes, peppers, and garlic. We eat loads of these all year round, so no fear of these going to waste. They would be in a couple of large containers on the patio. I'd love to grow cucumbers too, but as they trail it might be impractical.
Thirdly, potatoes. Probably just one container of these, and we can rotate which container has them in it from year to year to avoid disease.
Fourthly, strawberries, in a proper strawberry pot.
And finally, herbs. We have basil on the balcony now and I love it! So, definitely basil, oregano, mint and sage, and maybe marjoram and dill. With any luck, we'll be allowed to plant these under the little willowy shrubs they tend to put in as garden dividers - where they will enjoy a bit of shade, won't spoil the look and won't get mown by the caretaker (assuming we're in one of those type of places).

What do you think? Did I miss anything important?

Oh I came across this cool site too: Harvest to Table. Have a look, it has recipes as well as gardening stuff.

Outside: boxes 3 and 4

Yesterday I wrote about the boxes on the south-east side of the balcony. They only get morning and early afternoon sun. Today, the contents of the boxes on the south-west facing side. These get sunshine almost all day, from about 11 I guess.

In box 3 we have a fuchsia plant, a box tree, three orange nasturtiums, a sunflower, two passion fruit seedlings and an unexpected tomato plant.

I rather think that the passion fruit seedlings won't grow tall enough before winter comes to survive. They shouldn't survive at all in Switzerland, yet I have seen people with them growing up the walls of their homes. But never mind. They were surprise seeds anyway, like the tomato. I had put them in soil to germinate and as they didn't, after a while I used the soil to pot some sunflowers. Then they germinated! As a result I keep finding both tomato seedlings and passionfruit ones all over the place!

The fuchsia plant has me a bit worried. It has been producing vast quantities of flowers all year, which are now decreasing in number, and there are very few leaves. I think it may be getting too much sunshine and perhaps not enough water and food. This site says fuchsias require feeding with something high in potash.

In box 4 we mostly have nasturtiums. Two yellow, three orange and a single lovely dark red one which is my favourite. I have been collecting the seeds from them this week, as I discovered quite a few had fallen off and were falling onto the neighbours below, who have small children. Oops. I don't think nasturtium seeds are poisonous (after all the leaves and flowers are edible) but they are definitely a choking hazard!

As it turns out, nasturtium seeds are very user-friendly, and don't mind being harvested green, before they fall off by themselves. It's size, not colour, that matters, according to this rather good blog. So I have been gathering, and putting them in some muffin tins to dry out. Sadly I've only found three red seeds so far. Lots of orange and yellow though. I think we have enough seed to provide nasturtium plants for all the balconies in our neighbourhood!

Outside: boxes 1 and 2

Outside, everything is basically flourishing. Including the weeds. This is what happens when your balcony isn't pointed and you go away for ten days!

But the window boxes and pots look reasonably weed-free.

So what's going on out there? Well, box 1 is quite boring. It contains two little box trees, some purple and white alyssum, a marigold, a very small and stunted nasturtium which appears to have finished for the year without producing seed - although it did produce two surprisingly large flowers - several dwarf sunflowers and a cherry tomato plant.
The sunflowers are doing fine. The wasps love sitting under their leaves, I don't know why - perhaps to be in the shade? (The picture is of one of the sunflowers not in the box, they're easier to get photos of).
The tomato plant has three sets of tomatoes growing. One was an accident, I didn't realise the plant was growing one of those extra branches that you're supposed to snip off, until it was too late really. I've been snipping off all the others but somehow missed that one.

In box 2, the strawberries are very happy with themselves. I had to dig two of them up last month because they were very crowded in the window box, but we replanted them in separate pots and they are fine. Not producing quite as well as the ones still in the box. From our seven or so plants I can pick a large handful of smallish strawbs (I think these must be a wild variety) every couple of days. The wasps and bees aren't too happy about it! They all fly up in a great cloud when I get close, and I've learnt to either pick on cool, wet days or else in the evening when they've all settled down a bit. I've also learnt that planting strawbs right next to oregano and marjoram probably isn't the best from the wasp and bee point of view. And that when the instructions say to leave 20 cm between plants, they really mean it. (Of course I didn't read the instructions until halfway through planting!)

The oregano and marjoram have been flowering for some time now. The marjoram flowers white and the oregano pink. I've had to cut the marjoram back quite a bit because as well as intruding on the strawberries it was completely overshadowing the oregano. Now I am waiting to see when I can gather seeds from them. There doesn't seem to be much on the internet about this, probably because it's simpler to take rooted cuttings, so I might go ahead and do that instead. (This is for if we move house next year. Hopefully to somewhere with a real garden!)

More indoor plants

Remember those pineapple seeds I put in water to see if they would sprout? Well, two of them have! They are turning into teeny tiny plantlets. So that has taken two months. If I'm honest, I'm not sure what to do with them next. They're so small - almost microscopic - I don't want to plant them in case they dry up really fast and die. Do I leave them in the water, since pineapple plants apparently take in most of their nutrients through their leaves anyway? I have given them some new water this morning.

The pineapple top I planted has grown too. Its middle leaves have shot up, and are even getting a bit spiky around the edges. The ginger root it's sharing a pot with doesn't seem to be doing anything. I think that one might be a failure. Something to try again next year (if dh lets me...)

As for the avocados, they're all nice and tall now. I've pruned two of them back. The websites all say prune them back to about 6 or 8 inches once they get to a foot high, but I couldn't bring myself to cut them quite that much, they're more like ten inches. One is still too small to prune, and I'm waiting for the others leaves to grow a bit. In fact that one has leaves that are turning brown round the edges and falling off. Strange because the two it shares a pot with are fine! I suspect root damage - perhaps those pesky fungus gnats again - and will be pruning it this week to see if that helps.

You may wonder why pruning would help (if, like me, you're a novice), and the reason is that brown leaves usually result from water shortage. I can't water more because that will only make the gnats worse, so pruning the tree will decrease its water needs, meaning it will already be getting enough. That's the theory anyway!

Mango update

Well, the mango seed I posted about just over a month ago has grown! It produced a stem quite quickly, but the top was all black and we thought it wouldn't progress. We went away on holiday and when we came back it had grown four tiny leaves. Now two of them have fallen off. We've currently got a problem with fungus gnat so this may be the issue here too. If you look carefully in the picture you can see where the stem was black, it suddenly becomes narrower.

The older mango tree seems quite happy. It produced two large new leaves while we were gone, but hasn't increased in height. The new leaves are as long as the stem! Maybe even a bit longer.

It is quite warm in our house year round but the sun doesn't come in until afternoon, so I have been putting the mangoes outside on hot days to get more sunshine. So far they haven't caught anything I don't want inside (like greenfly or ants!)