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!