A balcony full of nom…

Green fingers…
I have been checking out German balconies recently and noticed yet another ‘reason’ I’m not German – they seem to fill their balconies with beautiful flowers of all colours. My balcony has food, food and a little more food. My friend bought me a flower for my birthday (she is also the reason I have one batch of flowers on the balcony – something needed to be bright and pretty apparently) and an AirBnB guest bought us a flower in a pot too. During college I even worked in a posh flower shop, but… I’m still all about the food. I want to be self-sufficient one day.
When I was a child, I would help my mum out a bit in the garden. I even had a patch for carrots (which I don’t even like) and a few other bits ‘n’ bobs. I even remember getting my first even tomato plant, when my first ever best friend Megumi moved back to Japan. But I didn’t inherit those green fingers and even after many years of practice my fingers are still pretty white…
This year has been my most successful however and I’m dying to tell you all about it!

Almost every day we get a fresh tomato to go with our breakfast. [No need to mention the tomatoes are small and we have to share it – so only half a tomato each -but organic is organic people!!] We also had a handful of cucumbers that grew. I’ve been very confused about cucumbers, as there were some pretty smashing ones growing at the bottom, then the entire one-meter stem in the middle died and then, just as I was about to put it in the compost, the top sprouted all over again, so we are back in business! The salad is a mix of Asian leaves and I’m going to start harvesting that tonight! Coriander is growing alongside some other herbs, even though I’m not a fan of it and I’m going to give beans a try once it gets a little colder. And did I tell you we had a continuous crop of cress? Probably the easiest thing even to grow if you’re a beginner and are looking for something easy that’s probably impossible to kill.

I’m not particularly good at this stuff and I often forget to water the plants, but I’m learning… Anyone else out there trying their luck at gardening (or balcony-ing in my case)?