Growing Food On My Balcony

There's not much to see just yet as its still early Spring. A box of peas has just sprouted. The box beneath holds strawberries. The pot to the lower right will be refreshed and planted with bush wax beans. The pot to the left contains one of two bush blueberry plants.

When I lived in Utah I had a large productive garden where I grew vegetables, herbs, flowers, fruit trees and berry bushes. I did a lot of work and I enjoyed it. And, it was the only way I could have organic produce to eat, despite living in a farming community. I did what many only dream about - the old farmhouse, a flock of chickens, growing most of my food, falling asleep at night to the sounds of sheep, cattle, horses, roosters, etc. on the farms down the road.

I traded the cottage/farm-style life for a lovely condo on the edge of the woods in Idaho. Here, there are shops and stores that sell wonderful organic produce and now that I'm older, I love not having to work so hard for my organic food. Now, I simply grab my recyclable bags, head to one of several organic markets getting what I need. There's even an organic delivery service I can choose to avail myself of from time to time.

Yet, regardless of how or where you shop there are simply some food items, that unless you grow them yourself, will never be truly wonderful or tasty.

My list of foods that must be homegrown to be of top quality and taste are green and wax beans, snow peas, strawberries, fresh herbs, and tomatoes.

I've populated my flower cart with a display of fresh herbs and some jaunty geraniums. In the background box and below are planted bare root Tribute strawberries. The pots will be hung on hooks once the berries establish. The box is situated on a rail hanger and will be attractive when the berries put on leaves, flowers, and berries.

Whether organic or not, green beans and snow peas, are simply not fresh or very tender unless homegrown and picked right before eating.

Store bought strawberries are old, hollow, tasteless, and sometimes bitter. Harvested, shipped, and awaiting purchase, strawberries begin to perish immediately. After getting them at the store you've got only hours before they wilt, brown, and turn to mush. When I grew my own, they could sit on the counter for a week after picking and still be good. They also made the best jam, pies, and shortcake.

Tomatoes! Those flavorless, firm, red orbs from the market are lackluster, picked green for shipping, and artificially "ripened" with ethylene gas, but never really ripe. None have that wonderful tomato flavor. Some of the cherry tomatoes sold in stores are sweet, but there's no flavor other than, well, sweet.

Herbs from the market have very little flavor and are generally in a state of wilting and browning. Why bother.

Thus, arose my experiment of growing the "Big Five" - green and wax beans, snow peas, strawberries, tomatoes, and herbs on my balcony. To this I added two bush blueberries their label promising that they only grow from 18- to 24-inches tall. Although self-pollinating, getting two insures maximum yields.

The balcony gets six to eight hours of sun, faces south, although it's comfortably shaded by an old crab apple tree during the hottest part of the day.

Last year I planted a shallow window box with a variety of morning glories. Not one came up! In despair and to grow something in the prepared box, I planted four, tired pole-type green bean seeds that had traveled with me from my old Utah garden patch five years ago. I didn't know if the seeds still carried a spark of germination. I just shoved them in the box out of desperation. I didn't stake them either, having little expectation they'd come up.

They grew up and over the balcony railing and I got three meals of fresh, tasty green beans from just four plants. This year I've researched on YouTube how to grow them properly in pots. After our last frost date in May I'll plant the pole and bush beans. I bought some stakes, too. It will be - if it works - glorious!

My balcony "garden room" is not large, but has enough room for a comfy sitting area and space to grow a few lovely and edible items.

These two miniature blueberry plants won't get much bigger than they are but should fill in with leaves and begin to look more lush.

I have a comfy spot from which to observe my "crops". The potted daffodil is just beginning to bloom. The tulips will follow. The old crab apple is beginning to send out its green leaves. Spring is "springing"!

These Ozark Beauty strawberries were purchased already rooted from Home Depot. I'm experimenting to see which does better - the bare root Tribute or the Ozarks.

While not a crop, I wintered over these geraniums on a bench in the sunny south window of my living room. They've just started to bloom again and will be set out on my front porch.

From time to time, I'll re-post on the progress of my "edible" garden room as it grows and flourishes, or fails and flops. I'm hoping for "grows and flourishes"!

In between posting on my wee, edible garden I'll be taking this blog into a somewhat new direction. I'll be focusing on ways to simplify, streamline, and make our lives more peaceful, joyfilled, and less chaotic. I'll be sharing links from other sites of those already doing these things.

Life was never meant to be a struggle! Together we'll explore ways to struggle less while being happier and less fraught.

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