June, so far

Long time no see, huh? I've actually done a lot with the balcony since I updated the last time and I've even taken photos of it. I've just been really lazy with updates (or busy with other stuff etc)

First of all I've re-planted all the geraniums/pelargoner that had spent the winter duct taped to my kitchen window sill (remember the itty, bitty, kitty monster that moved in to my home last fall? Duct tape is now a vital part of my interior decorations. LOL) Most of them had survived the winter. Some needed to be cut down a bit since they were way too tall and gangly but in general I preferred to keep them as big as possible this year.



Look at some of my re-homed geraniums/pelargoner waiting to be placed….



…on the window sill.



More re-planted geraniums
(and an innocent cat tail, this isn't the itty bitty one)



Pay special attention the foliage color of the one in the pink pot



Two days in the bright sun made the foliage change color
(it's not dry or burnt or anything like that)


I've also gotten some new plants form my mom, like a "pure bred" strawberry named Sonata (that's supposed to taste much sweeter than the berries from my other plant use to do), some Sweet Peas/Luktärtor and a little pot with Chard/Mangold seedlings. The sweet peas ended up in the flower boxes with all the other odd plants I've got there but the chard babies were too small to re-plant yet (And I promise, no chard will end up in my flower boxes. LOL)



The Sonata Strawberry and baby Chard/Mangold to the left



My old strawberry plant



Wild strawberry/Smultron


My next project was to turn the plant box in to a vegetable patch. Since it doesn't have a real bottom I've decided to grow things in pots instead of filling it up with soil but I've tied up the lid and started to plant some seeds. So far I've planted some lettuce/sallad (Garden rocket/Ruccola, my absolute favorite) and radishes/rädisor. (I've also got some pea seedlings, the chard and the Sonata strawberry in the plant box).

I'm particularly proud of and curious about the radishes since they've got a history of their own. Last year I've planted ordinary store bought radish seeds but for some reason they didn't grow their usual bulb like roots, instead the plants focused on foliage, flowers and seeds. I saved the seeds last fall and this season I've sown them and now I'm really curious to see what will happen. Will I get thick red roots or fruits like klast year? (the fruits are eatable and quite yummy as well)




The corner with my plant box/vegetable patch



I've sown radishes in the round pot, lettuce in the
rectangular pot and peas in the cut off milk cartons.


And finally some photos of my Petunias and flower boxes











I looove the scent of Sweet Alison/Strandkrassing




The lavender petunia that didn't have any flowers earlier















A rose, not a petunia LOL



Very strange petunia!

Little old lady flowers

Look what I bought yesterday!!! Dirt! Now I can plant more flowers again.



I also bought some more plants - OF COURSE!!! LOL



Petunias and Sweet Alison (Strandkrassing)



Even more Petunias!!!


Petunias???!!! Again???!!! To quote what I wrote last year on this subject:

I guess turning 40 really WAS the end of my fun, imaginative young self. Now I've turned old and boring! I've gotten Petunias!!! LMAO I've always thought that Petunias were for little old ladies and boring people with no imagination and now I'm one myself, a boring, little, old lady with no imagination but with four petunias instead. LOL I mostly blame my upstairs neighbor because every summer he's got the most stunning hanging Petunia baskets (and it's even just the basic bluish purple but they're still stunning). I also kind of blame my former mother-in-law's fantastic petunias (on the other hand she WAS a boring, old lady with no imagination so that's maybe the origin if my prejudices against the poor little flowers. LOL) But I also blame the "plant breeders" that's over the year created petunias in the most stunning colors and the cutest sizes. It's just not FAIR to wear down people's Petunia resistance by making the newer Petunias absolutely irresistible! And finally I blame my garden center that happened to have those irresistible Petunias right at the time when I came to buy some lobelias to mix in with the vegetables in my flower boxes. See, it's not MY fault at all!!!! *innocent* I mean I can't HELP that I've just bought 4 different Petunias and that I happen to LOVE them. It's everyone else's fault!!! LOL I'm not old and boring at all, I'm NOT! LOL

Since I'm a year older now I of course had to buy even MORE petunias this year (10 of them instead of four *blushes*) Well, what can I say, I loved the ones I had last year and they had some really nice colors at the garden center (Eeek! I even fell for one of those bluish purple ones this year. I'm sooo old! LOL) I wish they had more of the different pale pink ones I had last year though.



The one to the left is the same color as one I had last year



And I found this to be a really interesting color


Since I chose such a huge mix of petunia colors this year I decided to tie the colors together with just pale blue Trailing Lobelias (Hänglobelior) instead of using mixed colors. (They were my favorites last summer) I'm already MUCH more color crazy than I use to be and I feel that I need a bit of calmness as well in the color palette.



A curious visitor



Mommy's little sweetheart!!! (she's meowing here)



The "pink" tulip



The second tulip bud. I wonder if it will open?



My Forget-me-nots (Förgätmigejer)





The photo above is a sample of the "guerilla gardening" I told you about earlier. The photo si taken from my bedroom window (which is a little bit more difficult than my old camera can cope with) . Isn't it a lovely flowerbed? It's "owned" by my balcony neighbor (the lady on the other side of the wall) and she keeps increasing it bigger every year.

Yesterday's news

Well, technically the photos are from two days before yesterday even but that didn't sound as catchy as a title for the pots. LOL



I've decorated the wreath with some new, turquoise flowers to got better with the candle



It looks quite good, don't you think?



The Runner beans (Rosenbönor) keeps on growing



I'm looking forward to us them to cowering up the trellises,
especially the one facing the neighbor



Getting tired of this tree yet? LOL



The Bleeding Heart & Forget-me-nots (Lötjnantshjärta & Förgätmigej) keeps on growing as well



And look, wild strawberry (smultron) buds



And the "pink" tulip is getting bigger too



I soooo love this violet

Yellow Pears and Black Cherries

This week I've bought my tomato plants. I really loved the Yellow Pear tomato from last season. The plant gave an abundance of wonderfully tasting tomatoes and I really wanted a similar plant this year. I also want a smaller plant with cherry tomatoes. Last year I grew the red Tiny Tim but this year I decide to go with the blackish red Black Cherry that I've never tried before. Now I'm just keeping my fingers crossed that it will be a good summer for tomatoes!



Yellow Pear (to the left) & Black Cherry


I haven't planted the tomatoes yet though since I'm waiting for a large enough pot for the Yellow Pear plant. I don't know what I was thinking last year when I planted bulbs in my tomato pot? LOL



Yellow Tulip instead of Yellow Pear


But wait a minute! YELLOW tulip???????????? I remember very well that I planted PINK tulips.



Badly overexposed photo (from last fall) but still PINK


Well, at least it's an absolutely wonderful shade of pale yellow, bordering to lime green, that I love a lot (I'm not that fond of bright and bold yellows) It also goes very well with my new floor and with the new color scheme on the balcony so I'm not too disappointed, just surprised.



White Runner bean (Rosenbönor) seedlings


Yesterday I moved my baby runner beans from the kitchen window (BEHIND the geraniums (pelargoner) well hidden from my too curious flower eating itty bitty, monster kitty) to the balcony. They look really healthy and strong this year.

I know, I know, last summer I wondered for a while if I should really grow runner beans this summer since I didn't felt they grew fast enough to give me the protective green walls that I wanted, as fast as I wanted. But they made up for it by the end of the summer and looove the taste of the beans (Yum, yum, yum!) so I decided to give them a chance this year as well.

This year I will have more plants though (last summer gave lots of beans which mean that I've lost of seeds this season) and I will start giving them fertilizing straight away. Hopefully this will help them to grow thick green walls to protect me from the strong sun and prying neighbour eyes.



Rescued birdie!


I often see people show off their great "dumpster diving" finds in their blogs. I've never done much dumpster diving myself before but now I have my first dumpster diving find. It didn't involve any diving though since he was standing on the lid (and technically it was my mom that did the actual "non-diving" since I had my hands full of tomato plants) but I felt I just had to rescue the poor thing and now he lives on my balcony.



Another find this week was a new turquoise candle instead of the pink one
(this one I paid for though LOL)



The table area, with the new bird and the new candle.



The Bleeding Heart & Forget-me-nots (Lötjnantshjärta & Förgätmigej)



Viola odorata 'freckles' now in bloom


And now some photos of the "bonus garden". (If you're new to the blog, the bonus garden refers to the surrounding trees and flower beds and "guerilla gardening" = elderly people that create their own gardens on the lawn.) Usually the elder generations living her take a better care of the surroundings than the landlord company (that usually just take care of the lawns but is nice enough not to mind the guerilla gardening)



The poor bonus flower bed is in dire need of a weeding now!


I don't know who's responsible for it though, the landlord of the pizza guys (the stairs is the entry way to a pizzeria on the bottom floor). I hope some of the guerilla gardeners will take care of it soon though (I don't have the health to do it myself, otherwise I probably would sneak out one night and weed it since I love weeding. Yes, I know I'm strange LOL)





Half of the bonus roses froze to death this winter and my elderly neighbor that used to tend to the roses has moved so I don't know what will happen to them now (they're the landlord's responsibility)












More photos of the baby trees planted when they finished rebuilding the road outside.
Yes I love trees, can you tell? LOL



The view!

(The truck you can see belongs to the man from the landlord company mowing the lawn, which is why some photos above show a wild grown lawn full of dandelions and others look more neat)