how's it growing?

This is my first blog post, and I want to start it off light and easy. See how it feels to be a blogger before I commit. Commitment is hard. What is not hard is just talking. Actually that can be hard too... let's just talk about growing. Growing little things into big ones. What do you say?


I am no gardener, but I do love home grown vegetables and herbs. Being able to grow my own food, that I know is nutritious, organic, and as local as it gets makes me feel pretty empowered. Because I live in an apartment building I don't have a garden, but I do have a balcony, and therefore the best advantage out there for growing! Two summers ago we lived in a townhouse, and not only did we spend hours trying to get the polluted, cigarette butt infested, garbage laden, weed covered dirt from the previous renters out of there and replaced with actual soil, but we spent hours throwing rocks at the poor starving squirrels who feasted on everything we tried to grow! I hated gardening because of it!


Last year things were a lot easier, and this year even more so! We buy plants mid may because in our little nest there is no room for seedlings. This year we got a lot of them at a local market which had tons of variety. Balcony gardening is the fastest way to garden with the best results I think! It took us about 20 minutes to empty the containers of last years herbs and veggies, add fresh soil, plant and water everything. And the best part: no pests or weeding!

thyme, parsley, chili peppers, and mint

Thankfully we do get some bee friends who visit to pollinate. Otherwise there are no critters to compete with. We water every couple of days and enjoy!

cos lettuce, chives, cilantro, rosemary

We ended up switching the tomatoes/basil with the chili/mint/parsley/thyme because the eastern-most corner gets the longest sunshine.


We are really looking forward to trying the heirloom tomatoes. A big problem with food these days is that with the thousands of varieties of veggies like tomatoes, we only get a handful in our grocery stores. This is not right. We can't appreciate the diversity and complexity of food when all we get are some rubbery, waxy, two week old genetically modified version of the real thing. This is why growing is so important!

lettuce leaf basil, heirloom tomatoes (black russian and pineapple)

I can't live without this lovely lady!

Lavender is my favorite! I can't walk down the street and pass a lavender bush without sticking my hand in and smelling it's perfume. Every home should have lavender. In our old townhouse I planted 8 lavender plants, three different varieties, and they all got choked out by the infestation of burrs that I could never get to go away. Needless to say, nothing grew at that house except for my need to move.

welcome buddies! grow big and tall!

By the time I am writing this everything has doubled in size. I have enjoyed all of the herbs in my cooking! What a delight! I can't wait for tomatoes to come! I see some fresh salsa in my future!

basil in its glory

come on out little one!

tomato jungle

"i'll be a chili one day"

We had some extra containers, so I planted some seeds (a little late, I know) and we'll see what happens to them. They are all flowers, so hopefully I can have something to make some home-made arrangements with soon! Here's what they look like right now:

wildflowers

what will you look like?

decorative climbing sweet peas

Isn't nature amazing?

Love Always,

Joan Blondina