My earliest memory of getting my hands dirty is as a very young child helping my father with tomato plants in our backyard garden. To this day, the smell of chicken manure evokes a vision of huge, red, juicy tomatoes & a small kiddie plastic wheelbarrow in which I laid them carefully at harvest time.
My balcony garden in the middle of a busy suburb, in a bustling city, is my happy place and my retreat from my cares. Spent container soil is re-deployed after being sifted & amended with homemade compost, worm castings, purchased or gifted manures & minerals & Vermiculite. I do all of this on a balcony! I always mulch with organic Sugarcane which seems to break down well & sweetens the soil. It isn’t necessary to own the quarter acre block to grow one’s own food. If you have the space for a container, you have the space to grow!
A little farm such as mine is a great teacher & its greatest lesson is the begetting of patience. If a crop fails one season, you have to wait until the next year to address the failure but in the intervening time you reflect, you research, you problem solve & plan for the next season.
These lessons transfer well to life in general.
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Autumn has arrived and thoughts on the Balcony are turning to planning the Autumn Winter garden. Many would-be gardeners don't realise that living in a certain place actually determines the type of garden you will have and the plants that you will grow. Focussing on what plants grow best where you live wil help you create a healthy and productive container garden.
A common myth is that plants will grow larger if potted in a larger pot, like a buying a pair of school shoes at the start of the school year for a child. This seems logical, but actually most houseplants prefer a snugger fit. Here is a guide to selecting the Root pouch bag size for your plant.