First Week in the Balcony Garden Project

Maybe it’s the intense heat and the fact that I put all of the pots in our sun-filled hot-box of a living room all week.  Or maybe it’s the fact that I’ve been whispering sweet nothings to the plants when Frank is in the other room (don’t tell him).  But one week into my gardening project, things are certainly growing.

In fact, the rate at which things are growing took me so by surprise that I had to strap on my hiking backpack, not once, but twice, last week so that I could bring 10 kilo bags of soil to our apartment pack-mule style on the train.  (Reality check: people in any city get grumpy when someone boards crowded public transportation with an overstuffed backpack.)

Without getting too hopeful (yeah right), I’ve managed to get all of the seeds to sprout.  Some of them produced roots at such an unexpectedly speedy rate that I had to re-plant them after just a few days.  The squash, for example (below), outgrew their pots almost immediately, and seem to be thriving in much larger pots.

I even think that the labeling on the lettuce might have been accurate and “heatwave blend” may survive the Bangkok heat.

The sweet peas and garden beans seem to be a bit confused.  It’s too hot for the sweet peas, I’m certain, and yet neither bean/pea variety seems to be getting enough sun to be happy, and are turning a bit “leggy”.  (I’ve been researching such problems…I knew nothing of “legginess” in anything besides tall humans prior to this week.)

This week I am busily re-potting tomato seedlings into their own pots, including an upside-down pot that I fashioned myself, and figuring out what on earth to do with the broccoli (pictured up top).  If each of those seedlings is destined to grow into an entire stalk of broccoli, I’ve planted enough to have myself a veritable broccoli forest on the balcony.

Other posts on this so-called “garden”:

Week 1: Planting