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Wednesday, August 26, 2009

Spring has Sprung

I'm a huge advocate of grow-your-own organic, pesticide-free vegies. I know it's challenging especially when you live in the city in a high-rise apartment with just a small balcony or window-ledge. But herbs and vegetables need remarkably little room and as long as you have a few hours of sun each day you can tailor your crop to suit your space restrictions. Nothing tastes as good as fresh hand-picked rocket or tomatoes and you'll be saving yourself money at the same time!
With Spring just around the corner I've cleared out the remnants of my winter vegetable crops and put in some sunny greens and herbs. Emptying out old pots and refilling them with fresh potting mix, blood and bone and chicken manure (if you're lucky enough to have some handy) is back-breaking work. Skip your gym workout one day, dedicate your morning to planting instead and watch your little babies bloom into delicious produce..hhhmmmmmmm...

First plantings: Tom Thumb tomatoes, sweet basil, peas, and rocket. To give my seedlings an extra boost I've used a nursery quality potting mix, blood and bone fertilizer and chicken manure.

I should have my first tomato crop in about eight weeks' time. I can just picture it now....toasted sourdough rubbed with a cut garlic clove, thick sweet slices of tomato, a few aniseed-flavoured basil leaves, cracked black pepper and a drizzle of extra-virgin olive oil.

4 comments:

  1. How exciting. I think a balcony garden is a great idea - can't wait to see the fruits of your labour :)

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  2. Congratulations and good luck on being a contestant on MasterChef, if you can produce anything like those pies on your blog, your going to be extremely competative.

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  3. We've got a huge balcony but not much sun, have so far succeeded in baby romas, baby french beans, a single tiny broccoli stalk and lots of dead rosemary! Looking forward to your successes, we may be encouraged to put mor work into our pots

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  4. Hi Helen(AugustusGloop), apologies in the delay in getting back to you!Glad you;re enjoying my edible balcony experiement. Very happy with how its been going so far but eager to boost plantings. May do this next week. Indira

    Hi Reality Raver,
    Sadly my pie experience was no help during the pressure challenge. Why couldn't we have had a pastry to do rather than an Italian meringue? Oh well the best Bombe won! Indira

    Hi YaYa,
    Yes its very hard when you don't hae much sunlight. But it sounds like you're still growing a great array of vegies. Keep persevering! Indira

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