Balcony Garden: Spring Planting

Ummm, so I may have gone a little bonkers planting seeds to celebrate the beginning of spring. There is literally NO more room out on the balcony. The Boy's on guideline for my taking over the balcony was that he needs to be able to get to the clothes line, which he still can do. Just.

Besides filling up all horizontal space on the balcony I've been spending a bit of time at Bunnings of late stocking up on goodies for Spring.

I know there are LOADS of nursery's out there and I should be supporting smaller businesses. It's just that Bunnings is SO close to home and they have an "OK" selection of seeds, as well as an outdoor area selling established seedlings.  I prefer planting form seeds though as seeds are cheaper and half the fun of gardening is praying that your seeds will sprout. That and checking the garden 100 times a day.  I feel such joy when I head out on to the balcony each morning to check my crop.  I may or may not have screamed out form the balcony last week "oh my god! I have a bean shoot". Sorry neighbors!

So what have I planted?  It's quite a list, so are you ready for it?  Here we go: beetroot, beans, peas, eggplants, zucchinis, coriander, basil, parsley, lemongrass, lettuce, radish, cherry tomatoes, roma tomatoes, pak choi and shallots. Phew! And, I still have the carrots, mint and chives plodding along from last time and that one pesky radicchio that is still about as big as my thumbnail.  AND, I still have more things to plant but I've run out of room - I need to somehow find room for the bok choi and rocket.

So far most of the seeds I have planted all look pretty much the same, apart from the coriander that looked like the coriander seeds you get from the supermarket for cooking. This time around I thought it was pretty cool that the bean seeds looked like actual beans and the peas looked like dried peas. I'm a bit perplexed by the zucchini seeds though as they look like pumpkin seeds (geez, I hope I'm not growing pumpkins as I certainly don't have room for that out there). And how COOL is the beetroot below - it comes in a ready made strip (not sure why though).

And we've had these little guys move into the balcony. I'm thinking of them as short security guards from the bugs and aphids!

Get to work security guards!