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Well, hello there my 1.5 readers per month! Did ya miss me?
Since it's late February (and I live in one of the mildest climates in Canada), I figured that it was time to get on the balcony garden if I want to have it ready by the spring. Hey, the crocuses have been blooming here for several weeks, and I seen my first daffodils blooming only the other day. It's that time of year again.
The first thing I did was go through the compost pail. Composting has been a mixed success for me so far. As you can see in the buckets below, there is a lot of nice, loamy soil that has been created - but not all of it composted equally. On the right you can see the remains of last summer's potato plants, which obviously did not fully decompose, so I picked most of it out and threw it into the trash before spreading the rest around in the pots on the balcony.
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After I was done with the compost, I planted some tomato seeds and pepper seeds in small yoghurt containers I've been saving up over the winter. In another week or two, I'll start some cucumber seeds in a few more containers. I hope these little things work out. Last year I used a few coffee cups, and that worked out okay. I'm going to try to grow everything from seed this year, to cut down on expenses.
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I also planted some kale in two of the large pots, hoping that they will sprout and grow early in the spring, so that by May I can harvest it and use the pots for a different crop during the summer. I'm not sure if it's too early in the year... perhaps we might get another frost, and perhaps not, but at least kale is a cool weather plant so I'm keeping my fingers crossed.
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This year I need to get the little garden producing better!
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I'm fairly inexperienced starting a garden from seed, but here is an excellent article on the subject that I found over at the Game and Garden Blog which gave me a lot good pointers. Another good post on how to start plants from seed can be found at Sensible Survival.
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