While I wait

While I wait for the days to pass before I can leave for Earthsong, I have decided that I really need to get focused on gardening again. When I sorted through my book collections the other day I piled up all my books on Permaculture & Organic Gardening, so it was to this pile I turned.

I pulled out all the books I had by Jackie French, devoured them in 2 days and then set to work deciding what I could do on an upstairs balcony with full sun all day (practically). Eventually (as it was pretty much my only choice really) I decided to build 2 "box gardens" and to replant my other pots. I grabed the car keys, wandered down to the green grocer and begged sweetly for 2 stirofoam boxes and a cardboard box of cabbage leaves, which he was more then happy to supply. I then drove over to CERES to get my potting mix, seawead fertiliser and of course - the plants.

After wandering around the nursery for about half an hour, I finally decided that I wanted seedlings rather then seeds. Why? because I'm hopefully not going to be here for long enough to nurture seeds into full grown, harvestable plants. So the decision was:

• Cos Lettuce
• Baby Spinach
• Flat-leaf Parsley
• Chilli plants (compleate with 1 chilli each :)
• Snow Peas (which I am growing around a wire desk organiser that I don't use)
• Basil
• Strawberries
• Rosemary
• Chives
• Coriander
• and Silverbeat (I think that's what it is, I can't recal now, oops)
  

Then came the task of actually creating the garden. Jackie recomends filling the boxes half full with something like lawn clippings or cabbage leaves (green folage type stuff) and then fill the rest with potting mix, plant densly, water everyday and fertalise with something like a liquid seaweed fertiliser.

The end result was thus:


Lets just hope they yield me a bumper crop (or better yet, we leave before they mature and I have to give them away, lol)