Adventures in Gardening

This year I felt enthusiastic about growing my own salad. I have plenty of decorative flowers at home and on our two small balconies. During the years I've even had trees, grown from seeds - right now I have an avocado and a lemon tree. Unfortunately, it turns out, they will never bloom and give fruit, because most of these supermarket bought varieties are hybrids, which are barren, when grown from seed.

I've tried my hand at growing spices - dill, parsley, basil; presently I have two pots with rosemary and lavender. However, I've never tried to grow vegetables on the balcony - most of them require space and lots of soil. But I read about lettuce, and it turns out you can grow it in balcony pots and have a bunch of fresh leaves for your sandwiches and garnishes.

As a start, I bought two packs of seeds - a lettuce variety and rucola (eruca).

21 March 2023

I filled two balcony pots with soil, made eight nests in every pot and added 5-8 seeds in each nest. Watered them and started the eternal waiting and inspecting.

 

26 March 2023

Four days later the first indications of germination were present in the rucola pot, six days after potting all of the nests had growing plants.

 

31 March 2023

Ten days after potting the lettuce was also growing strong.

 

 

25 April 2023

One month after potting I picked my first edible leaves as a garnish to an asparagus omelet.  

 

May 01 2023

We had our first green salad with lettuce, rucola and cucumbers.

 

08 May 2023

The daily harvest :)

 

I am quite fired up so far. Right now I have a third pot with wild geranium, which is occupying half of the place for pots on the balcony and I'm thinking of moving it to a more shady place and putting two more pots with crops - more lettuce varieties or maybe strawberries of the vertical growing variety. I so wish I had a garden - I'm a city girl with a country heart :)