A quick reminder

Just a quick reminder that Spring is here and many suppliers have  seeds and bulbs in stock, so go out there and get your flowers and veggies started. It wont be long before they also have young plants available. I have some new plans for how I can make better use of my small balcony this year and will share them with you as the year goes on.
Right now I have Tomato, Sweet Peppers, Basil, Swiss chard,Spinach, Parsley and Marigold seedlings sprouting. Also many of my over wintering plants are springing into new life :)

New Things

So here I am on February 2 and it is a Spring like day in Sarajevo. Back in December  I planted some Tulip bulbs that a friend gave me into a pot and placed them in a cool room . In the middle of January I brought them into my kitchen where after a short time life popped up above the soil.
I also planted some Garlic into 2 separate containers, 1 I left outside on my balcony the other I left in the kitchen. The one in the kitchen has 2 nice little plants, the one outside as yet to show any signs of growth. It will be interesting to see if there is any difference in the final result.
My small Clivia which I got as an offshoot has been sitting un-watered since the end of October has now had it's first watering.Clivia are natives of South Africa and they usually flower after the dry summer there so by mimicking that summer in winter here hopefully they are encouraged to flower.
Finally 2 of my orange trees lost almost all of their leaves over the winter, but are now showing signs of new shoots.
Just a reminder to start thinking about what seeds you want to buy for the coming growing season. :)

Pineapple

In the summer while visiting a friend he made fresh fruit salad which included Pineapple. I asked him for the top and took it home, After removing the remains of the fruit and also a few of the lower leaves I suspended it in a container with water so that it cover the lower part of the base. Slowly roots appeared and when I thought there were enough I put it into a pot with some soil. In the photo below you can see some months later the resulting plant.

My research tells me that I didn't need to do the water trick but could have just planted it straight into the soil, but for me it was nice to see the roots form.. Pineapple is from the Bromeliad family and to water them it is best to fill the cup in the leaves from time to time.It should produce a fruit in maybe 18 months time and then it will also produce a pup which can be removed and planted up. They produce only 1 fruit a year but if you keep removing and potting up the pups you can soon have a good supply of fruit to enjoy or share with friends.

Orange grove

You may remember that last year I managed to get 5 orange seeds to germinate and get them through the winter indoors. Well during the summer 2 of them decided they didn't want to go on,as is their want. So it is a little over a year later and as you will see from the photo's they have become my little orange grove :) .

Hopefully they are now established enough to get through another winter and in the Spring I will move them on into bigger pots.

Falling into Autumn

Over the next few months we can start to think about preparing for the new year. One of the things that can be done is to take cuttings of some of your favourite plants.

Here is a cutting that I took recently and rooted in water, then potted into a general soil mix.

This is an example of the same plant 6 to 8 months after taking and rooting a cutting. In fact the rooted cutting above was taken from this plant just a few weeks ago.
Some plants will root easily and quickly, others will require a little patience, but the results can be well worth the wait :)

The balcony garden

I just wanted to show you what is happening on my balcony. As you can see it is quite small and now it is crowded with plants. There is a mixture of flowering plants, also some Tomato, sweet peppers and ornamental squash, I have lettuce, which provide me with green salad and also an addition to my sandwiches. You can also see that I utilize various milk containers, it's good to recycle and re-use. :)

Salad days

So on my balcony I have a small garden which includes some Lettuce and Tomato, around 7 plants of each. I have been cutting leaves from the lettuce and making small green salad a very nice treat :) . Some of the tomato plants are just starting to show flower buds, so maybe next month I will have some of those to add.
I  have just started some new lettuce seedlings to maintain a continuation. The weather has not been too warm so far and we have been getting regular rain showers so things are progressing nicely. I hope they are with you too :) .