Making plans to chomp down a balcony

4x2metres balcony is all we got. Did an inventory this afternoon. There are already some-34 varieties (see 'What's growing' on left column) of herbs, vegetables and fruit-vegs within this little space.

To maximise natural sun locations for growing, the double-tier planting rack has been moved to form a continous 4metres sunny-frontline with the existing heirloom tomato collection and suspended herbs rack.




Leafy vegetables -> Started; to expand.

Grown in hydroponic boxes. With 4weeks rotations, and harvesting 4 cooking-days a week, there will be a need for one more hydroponic box. What I have now is Pakchoy, Choysum, Lettuce and Silverbeet. Looking for Spinach and Kailan. Do drop me a note if u will like to propose more greens, or your prefered variety ;)

Root vegetables -> To research & start soon.

This catergory of edibles is completely new to me. Maybe grow some radish or carrots in a soil box? How deep should it be? What kind of soil media? Which varieties? ......

Fruiting vegetables -> Started; to improve lighting condition.

Im partial to heirloom tomatoes. They will all grow up to be giants. However, being indoor, I only allow them grow up to 2.2metres, after which, chop it down and grow new plant. Still, this arrangement is good enough to keep me happy with my little collection. Only problem seems to be that more and more sunny days have been replaced with cloudy (though equally high temperature) days. There is a need for setting up growlights to fill in 2 extra hours of artificial lights a day.

Amidst growlight selection right now... Once set up, the edible-balcony blueprint should more-or-less remains stable till 2010 at least. And I look forward to the exciting actions-days for the following weeks ;)

Divide the 'land'; together we will grow.

These are days of mudfish-morale : you know you are a fish, yet you can only crawl on your stomach on the muddy floor of the ocean-of-unlimited-opportunities.

To keep the morale afloat during this period where things just dun seems to go the way they should, i chose to work on one aspects of our life. Knowing and doing at least one thing right/victorious feels uplifting now:)


Now that Wm has chosen also to 'taint' his fingers green, we divided up our gardening area into two sectors :

- Corridor will be ornamental. This will be Wm's domain.
- Balcony will be edibles, thus strictly organic and hydroponic combo. Tis will be my domain.

Let life breath into our gardens !