Friday, August 28, 2009

Just a pelargonium bud...





This fall is coming closer and closer to my dear balcony. :o( Plants have started to become a bit "overgrow" and some has started to look a bit tired now. Soon the balcony season will be over for this year and there isn't as much progress to take photos of any more. This makes me feel a bit sad and melancholic but then it's a good thing that I've still got some pelargonium buds to follow. Especially when they look this cute and funny! LOL

It's a jungle UP there!

Remember that I complained that my balcony looked boring from the outside? That's no longer true! Now it's jungle-ness is shown from the outside as well. And anything less than gorgeous on these photos is caused by the photographer really old camera. LOL












It's still looking even better from the inside though


Look at all those Runner Beans!!!! I've gotten plenty of beans this year! But to be honest there's less of them now then there were earlier today. Yummmmm!!! LOL

I've gotten plenty of Tomatoes as well, but they're still green and unripe. It seems like everybody's having a hard time getting their tomatoes to ripen this summer, EVEN my mom's neighbor Irja (she's one of those people that's part garden faerie, every inch of her garden is about 100 times more jungle-like than my balcony)



Tomato - Yellow Pear



Tomato - Yellow Pear



Tomato - Tiny Tim

Wednesday, August 26, 2009

The Sweet Pea Mystery



Sweet Peas/Luktärtor (and more)


Me and my mom shared a bag of Sweet Pea seeds this season but for some strange reason 95% of my Sweet Peas are scarlet colored and 95% of my mom's Sweat Peas are lavender. I've gotten ONE single lavender colored Sweet Pea, one orangey red and two white ones (the purple/lavender/pink thing seen in the background on the photo is a Petunia) This really makes me wonder what decides the color of Sweet Peas. Did my mom grab all the lavender Sweet Pea seeds before handing the rest over to me? (and in that case, how's that even possible?) Does the soil with different nutrition, minerals etc decide the color? And what on earth has happened to all the Sweet Peas that aren't scarlet or lavender? The usually come in huge variation of colors.

Well, no mater the color, the still smell heavenly. I combine them with pale blue hanging lobelias every now and then, just big enough bouquets to bring in the fragrance

And yes, I know the photo above sucks. The flowers are growing on the outside of the balcony and it's not easy leaning out to take photos, especially not when you're short and you're blocked buy huge tomato plants. LOL



Strawberry


Isn't this strawberry plant impressive? This one never got any berries this year, instead it focused on growing baby plants.

Tuesday, August 25, 2009

In the jungle, the mighty jungle...

...the lions sleep tonight

It's just that my "lions" hardly sleep when they get to visit the jungle for a little while. LOL

(Late evening = flash photos again)



*nom* *nom* Flowers!!! Yummy!



*sniff* Something smells very *sniff* interesting tonight *sniff*



Sleeping lions or not, it's still a jungle




It took longer than expected this year but now the trellises are covered




And all the pelargoniums are full of flowers




I really like how this one turned out (and the leaves, the leaves!)



And a multicolored one!!! (or two plants cheating LOL)




A bud on one of my newest pelargoniums




Same here, just bigger buds




The Hydrangea have recovered completely now. It likes the cooler weather




Tomatoes - Tiny Tim




Tomatoes - Yellow Pear

I wonder if we'll get enough sun and warmth for the tomatoes to ripen? It always a bit uncertain when you don't grow your tomatoes in a green house. But I DO get plenty of sun on the balcony as long as the weather is good.

BTW, can you see the nice and colorful gift wrapping ribbons? LOL



This, if you ask me, was a WAY too small portion of
Runner Beans/Rosenbönor. They're gooooood!


Last year I barely got enough beans to produce seeds for next season but this year there's plenty to both eat and save as seeds.

And don't worry, the pan in question IS clean, it's just very old, like most my stuff (the white residue on the edge is just salt)

Thursday, August 20, 2009

Rearranging things a bit

It's been windy all week now, not quiet as much as on the Sunday but enough to knock over the tallest pelargoniums as soon as I put them back up on the window sill. Yesterday I got tired of keeping them on the floor so I decided to rearrange things a bit. Now, the Mårbacka pelargonium and the tall red one are standing on the tablee instead, all safely tied to the trellis and I'm only keeping shorter plants on the window sill = no more windy accidents so far.

I've also had to tie up the tomatoes even more from all kind of angles (since the winds is coming from the south this time which it usually doesn't) I think they too will be okay now though.



The window sill afterwards



The tall pelargoniums safely tied to the trellis



Pelargonium close up



This one is the tallest pelargonium on the window sill
now and gets to stand in the most protected corner.



Looking at the Runner Beans/rosenbönor!!!
(the grapes are plastic though LOL)



This one will be way too big to eat but great to use for seeds for next summer.



The balcony is soooo lush now, it's just hard to capture on photo.

Latest radish news!





I thought I should let you know how the radishes were SUPPOSED to look. Just you average, basic, normal radish. They only difference is that they were supposed to be a little bit more white then usual.

As we all know now, this is NOT how they turned out at all. LOL

After a bit of googling I've discovered that you CAN eat the fruits from overgrown radishes though (and they actually taste quite good) Some people even grow them for their "fruits" instead of their roots. but they usually uses seeds from brands that's supposed to get overgrown (which mine weren't)

But even though they're tasty I think I'll mainly focus on getting seeds for next season.

Tuesday, August 18, 2009

My strange radishes!








Felicity got it right in the end. The strange "fruits" I showed earlier WERE indeed Radish fruits. I've never seen radishes flower before and I've never even HEARD about radish fruits. Obviously they must get some kind of fruits to get seeds but I've never actually seen it happen before or heard of any one else that had either. I guess it's been a good summer for radish fruits and a less good summer for radish roots. LOL

But mom's been growing radishes as well, a different kind than mine, in her green house without the fertilizer I've used and her radishes also grew really tall with itty, bitty tiny roots (even though she didn't get any fruits) so I guess there was nothing I did wrong with these, it's just not a radish year (or perhaps very much a radish year, depending on how you see it LOL)

I will harvest these fruits later to take care of the seeds. I'm really curious to see how they will look on the inside. Will they be fruit or just blown up shells with some seed inside? Next spring I will plant the seeds and of course follow it up in the blog.

(BTW, in case you wonder, the wind didn't damage anything on my balcony yesterday. Phew!)

Sunday, August 16, 2009

The flowers my friend are blowing in the wind...

...the flowers are blowing in the wind



This is what I woke up to this morning! It's "a bit" windy today!!!





The parsley and the two tallest pelargoniums had been knocked down by the wind. Nothing was broken though, neither the long stems or the ceramic parsley pot. In fact both the parsley and the pink Mårbacka Pelargonium were still standing up. Look at the Mårbacka, it's even standing UNDER the chair, to protect it self from other falling plants. It's just peaking out with it's "head" to see if it's safe out there now. I wonder how it's managed to land in a standing position under the chair?????





I've placed all plants (that aren't tied to or entwined with the trellis) on the floor now to be on the safe side. I've also tied up the tomatoes a bit more since it's blowing from the opposite directing than it's used to today (and a lot more as well). I will be going away for the day and I'm actually a bit worried. What if the table blows over and lands on my flowers? What if...?



A photo from yesterday, this is how it's SUPPOSED to look.



The Busy Lizzy/Flitiga Lisa

Saturday, August 15, 2009

Ch, ch, ch, changeeeees!!!





They're not JUST blowing this up, they've actually started to BUILD this as well now. So far it looks like it's going to be some kind of wall/fence.



Petunias in the rain


Don't forget to guess on the strange fruits below! No correct answer has been given yet.

Friday, August 14, 2009

Strange fruits!



No silly! These are bonus roses, they're neither fruits nor strange. LOL



And these are the new Pelargoniums I got today (the two left ones)



They're neither fruit nor strange...



...just pretty



Now we're getting somewhere though! Tomatoes ARE actually considered fruits and I guess that, as fruits, they're a bit strange compared to apples and pears, but not strange enough. LOL



Some of them are very small, but that's not strange enough




And some of them are fuzzy (???) and have strange shapes...



... but even that isn't enough



There's also A LOT of them, but we're talking strange fruits...



... not strange AMOUNTS of fruits


These are the strange ones though!!! Care to guess what they are???



Have your ever seen anything like this before?



There's a lot of these as well!


I WILL of course reveal their identity another day if you can't guess. LOL