Despite frosty appearances, it’s not winter anymore. It’s pre-spring. There’s proof outside my bedroom window where the tiny bulbs we planted last autumn are now 6” tall – and one particularly ambitious crocus is about to bloom. Excitement in the universe.
Paolo & I are the most adorable little gardeners on earth. We’re definitely still beginners – this will be just our 3rd year gardening our small plot in a nearby community garden. Are you guys plant-loving people? When winter hits and gardening dies down, I really miss it.
Our garden last year
This year – bigger, better
With a bigger and better balcony than ever before, this year – I want a jungle. Inside – permanent supplies like floor and tile are bought with budget and popular consensus in mind. Outside - my excesses can run riot. Come time of sale I only need to scrub the deck and remove all but the most beautiful pots. The process is a hobby, but it sticks to my main flipping rules: don’t spend where you don’t have to and do the best you can with what you’ve got.
Special bonus?
If we stick to the plan, this place will go on the market when the weather’s still nice and warm. If we’re to use fresh cut flowers for open houses anyway – we might as well have plenty of colour and life on display outside. And what if we could grow some of those fresh flowers? And not just for stupid strangers, but for us to enjoy, too.
Whereas we’ve been growing our veggies from seed, we still bought our balcony flowers fully grown. Petunias from Home Depot: not delightful. This year? I’m trying to grow the whole balcony from seed. Juuuungle.
Brilliant news. For Vancouver, our last frost date is March 28th. One month, 25 days away, or just about 7 weeks. We can start planting flower seeds now!
Join in? Grow along with me? Whether you’re renting an apartment, flipping a mess of your own or live in a nice big house with plenty of dirt – why not? If you say “you kill plants” I’m going to send of those ugly naked midgets to your house. All crazy experiments have to start somewhere. Motivate yourself with noble thoughts of nature, beauty or just save a few bucks from plants buying at the store.
Let’s say we start growing next Friday, Feb 11?
There’s a weekend in there to get organized – make some love lists, figure out what grows best in your region (whether in containers or the ground) and with your available light, plus buy some seed trays and starting soil. Any seed orders you make online should arrive by then as well. Yes? No more ugly balconies!
You can check out your climate’s last average frost date here: Canada, U.S. or UK. Not everything requires a 6-week head-start, but many seem to (check the back of the seed packet for details). If you’re somewhere colder (sucker), try starting impatiens and lavender next week – they’re slow.
Nurseries around here are just getting their seed shipments in now – or you can order online. Canadian and West Coast suppliers I really recommend include: Two Wings Farm (mostly heirloom vegetables), Renees Garden Seeds and the well-stocked West Coast Seeds. Otherwise check in your region for an independent company not owned by Monsanto.
The long list of plants and flowers I’ll be trying to grow on the balcony:
impatiens, lavender, snapdragons, ornamental grass, some crazy-looking coleus, scented night stock, two wildflower mixes (who knows!), dahlias, honey-scented alyssum, marigolds, portulaca, zinnias and sunflowers. I’ve also got an asshole of a fuchsia that will flower this year and two scented geraniums, one of which is called pink champagne.
And I’m working on convincing Paolo that a second worm bin is a great idea. Why not make this the year you embrace your filthy hippy & try out balcony worm composting? You know you’re a little bit intrigued by filth, or you wouldn’t be reading this blog. So, seeds and plants and flowers…are you in? All the cool kids are doing it….
Hey, you want a s'more? Some more of what?
I’m too jealous. It is too cold inside my house (let alone my yard) to think about growing stuff. My butter is softer coming out of the fridge, than on my counter overnight. Nothing will grow, anywhere around me. Yay Ontario!!! Good luck with your gardening. I’ll tell you all about mine in August, when the snow melts.
Hi Tanya! Ok – maybe stick with the hibernation for a while longer, I know full well we don’t live in “real” Canada. Good luck with the frozen butter… maybe switch to eating peanut butter straight from the jar instead?
I was never one of the cool kids, and rarely into what they were doing. But the Big Guy has been hounding me to consider a vegetable garden. I just need to figure out where we can put a garden where the dogs won’t destroy it. I don’t think they’ll dig it up or anything, they’ll just plow over it as they race around the yard barking at everything that moves, flies, or flutters. And if what comes up smells at all edible, they’ll eat it. I love them, but they sure complicate our lives.
Ah – so you’re telling me that peer pressure doesn’t work? Damn. Always good for me to hear that ‘dog ownership is not a bed of roses’ — my pet-acquisition-plans tend to exceed reality.
Would some sort of cheapo DIYed fencing work? Not sure how bigs your doggies are. Failing that – tomatoes in hanging baskets?
70 and 75 lbs. The male is quite docile, he’s really not much of a threat to anything. The female only stays inside the fence out of respect for us. She can clear the 4-ft fence in front without trying, and if there’s anything worth chasing in the neighbor’s yard (she feeds feral cats), she can vault the 6-ft fence back there without a lot of effort. I’ve actually done some research online, there are quite a few veggies that can be grown in upside-down planters like you see on tv, we would just have to invest some time and effort in planting the poles to hang them off of.
Big ones – excellent! Is the girl called Flo-Jo? Holy cow. Imagine if you were walking past a 6′ fence and suddenly a dog flew over it. Haha – just like out of The Sandlot.
I guess the upside-down-planter thing does seem a bit informercial-y! Maybe just grow gross vegetables and they’ll leave them alone. Brussels sprouts?
Every time, I swear, every time I’m about to throw a lot of grocery waste into the garbage, I look at Ryan and say “We need worms.” You were lucky, in that you got yours cheap. I looked online, to order them, and they were like $150!! for 2 lbs or something like that. I was hoping for that whole $20 and some info. LOL.
Ryan says we’ll get them after we move. And it’s a good plan, because really, who wants to move worms across the country!?
Our garden spot is gone but I’m up for attemtping to grow my own baskets for the backyard. Although, I can’t start yet! Geez, it’s still Winter with a capital W around here!!
Yeaaa worms! I can’t believe that’s how much they cost! I don’t suppose I could mail you some of mine – they’ve been breeding. It would be the weirdest thing I’ve ever done, but I’m mostly serious. Moving worms just across the city was a pain though!
I would totally take some air mail worms! Throw ‘em in a box with a little dirt and ship ‘em to me! Mark them fragile.. LOL
“Fragile but well-behaved”. How about this place? (http://www.cathyscomposters.com/products.htm) $25 for worms, $45 for the bin (or you could make it yourself probably – just some holes in a Rubbermaid). That’s probably cheaper than Fed-Ex at any rate, right?
Hey! Good link finding!
I found places like this http://edmonton.olx.ca/red-wiggler-compost-worms-garden-1-lb-pkg-for-canada-shipping-included-iid-8795365 to when I first searched and was a bit discouraged by the prices! So do you only have 1/2lb of worms? Or maybe I should say “Did you”? I wasn’t sure how many I would need to get. There are 6 of us eating and wasting here.
Side note: Can you believe the prices of the place only 1.5hrs away from me is like $20-25 more than the place in Ontario!?! Geez.
The photo on that link looks disgusting!! Oh I hadn’t thought about more people = more worms. We got 1/2 lb and I think they multiply quite rapidly. Right away there were tiny worm babies in the bin. They eat more during the summer when it’s hot & that was just about enough for the 2 of us (but I guess we tend to eat more fresh food when it’s hot & more readily available?).
I think you could buy a pedigree dog for less than some of those worm prices! Hope an ideal conclusion appears from the ether.
Instead on filling up your deck with pots, why not build a single planter around the edge, about 30cm wide and at knee height?
That way, you can maximize usable space.
That would be sweet! And build a bench seat in the middle of it for maximum jungle-y-ness. We’ve already got about 2 dozen pots, though, so will have to play the cheap bastard card on this one & just make do.
We won’t be able to grow with you for at least another 2 months, but then we’ll be back at it with a deck-based Spanish Vegetable garden and bunches of flowers out in the front yard…
Yum – what do you grow? I can’t believe it’s still that much longer ’til spring for you guys – I guess you think “south” you think “warmer”. Guess I was wrong!
I’m in!
Fantastic! Did you end up getting your Christmas worms? (You were probably joking but I’m so obsessed with them I’ve lost rational thought processes).
I didn’t get them for xmas…maybe for valentine’s day?!
Nothing says love more than decomposition.
Zombie worms!