Year of the window box

One of the things I really miss about living in a house is that there is no garden in my apartment. I'm a failure with houseplants since I can never seem to look after them just the way they like...and the cat chews on everything anyway. All my indoor "plants" are silk.

I'm going to try and grow some herbs on the balcony this year, although this worries me a bit because we get the morning sun and it can be very hot out there. Still, I am going to try. I love the taste of fresh herbs in cooking, and paying $3 for one sad little sprig in the store seems outrageous. I visit the farmer's markets lots but I do love to putter.

I am thinking of chives, thyme, oregano, parsley, maybe rosemary and I love basil but I think it'll shrivel in the heat. I might try a couple of buckets for a small variety of tomato too. I just need to be prepared to haul everything in the apartment in the event of a big storm. Hopefully there won't be any bugs that come in with them (I doubt it since we're on the 3rd floor, and I think most bugs are too smart to come in--that could be a problem for pollinating though, so I will have to check that out). I'll add a few flowers too, for some colour against the green.

Any other suggestions?

I keep herbs on the patio of my little house, Pam. I love cooking with them, and as you said, buying sprigs is expensive. I'm not all that good at it; I lose some, but at $4 a pot, it is still much cheaper than buying them in the supermarket.

My four must-haves are the herbs for my "Simon & Garfunkel" dishes: parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme. I also keep basil, oregano, chives, and mint. Sometimes I grow a "spaghetti pot," with all the Italian herbs in it.

I posted these pictures for Joe sometime last spring:



the top one is from the patio; the bottom from the kitchen.

I find that the sun is a good thing for herbs, so long as you water them regularly. they do not need as much tending as most patio plants. I also grow cherry tomatoes, lettuce leaves, and radishes sometimes - I had a large container at one time that was my salad garden. There will be times you need to bring them in. The etagere [sic?] in the picture can come into the kitchen pretty easily, and just rest against the same door as it does from the patio.

I live in a "garden home" with a tiny back yard. It still seems to much for me sometimes. I find myself wishing I lived in an apartment with a nice balcony instead.

Ann

Pam and Ann,


How clever you both are, You are inspiring me.

Ann you have given me a wonderful idea - I had thought to hang boxes over the railing but have seen them blow away around here when they are not secured properly. If I use a stand similar to yours, I could bring things in and out easily, depending on the weather, and the stand too. Since I mostly work from home, it's not too tough for me to coordinate.
Lettuce is a great idea, I think I can manage that for a summer. Love the idea of a salad garden, and if I get carried away, there are plenty of folks to share things with.
Alice, the power of brains here is inspiring. It's one of the things I like about hanging out!

Another great idea is the geranium window boxes like they have in Switzerland.

They were so beautiful.

I have seen a short flower that grows here called an icebox flower or something like that (I think if is originally from Switzerland or somewhere Nordic), and is handy for places that have late or early frosts. They are really, really pretty. I saw them in the gift store of a lighthouse I visited once. I'll be darned if I can remember which lighthouse...will have to give this some thought and see if I can figure it out and find some seeds!

Pam and everybody, This link was just posted in an email, and I remembered this thread.

http://www.healthcastle.com/spring_container_garden.shtml

Looks like fun. I may try some of it myself.

Ann

4/26/2011


Ann:

Your plant stand is similar to the one I have on
the patio , mine collapses for storage.


Pam:

Have you ever tried growing Tillandsia plants?
their related to the bromelaid plants. Sometimes you
see them in the supermarket.. Here's the one I have,
their very easy to grow, not demanding..




Cheers..Joe

I think I will try the tomatoes.

Back in 1982, one of my genius ideas was that people who lived in apartments and had that 4x8 little patio outside the sliding glass doors that had a railing all around needed flowers and a nice bush and some little vegetables, a hanging herb basket and all of that could fit in that space. I started with the hanging herb garden, which was a large wire basket ( 24 inches across) lined with moss and filled with potting soil, planted with parsley, chives, bush basil, green onions, mint and taragon and stuff like nastursium. Well, they had their choice (within reason and growth habit) of herbs. It took me and another to hang that up.

On the deck were (at that time) wooden planters four feet long and ten inches wide that held their choice of low growing flowers like pansies, petunia, miniature roses,.....or lettuce, radish, patio tomato. In a big round pot they could have tomato, and cucumber. My spetacular thing was morning glory growing in a hanging basket hung from the middle of the 'porch'. I used old refrigeration baskets that werethree feetlong, lined them with spagnum, filled them with potting soil, soaked the seeds over night, planted them, hung them up and the Glory vines grew up and over the roof of the apartment complex. I wish I still had the picture of that. You could see it a block away. I smiled every time I drove by.

This year, I have used an old circular fan cage that is about 24 inches across, put a big circle of ground cover to line the bottom, filled it with potting soil and planted the blue morning glory. It hangs in a tree between the house and the pump. It will grow over the tree, hang down around it and make me smile all summer.

Love,
Betty

Betty,

Please post a picture of it, when it is in full gear.
We will smile too.

Love ya,
Alice

Dear Alice,
I will take a picture of it tomorrow in it's youth.
I will post it. I get a lot of joy out of thinking these things up and seeing them as I imagined them. Using junk to make a beautiful thing is something from my ugly childhood. It is something I have to do. Buying beauty is nice, but making it out of nothing is better.

Love,
Betty

I have been away for a bit, so am behind on your helpful messages! My mum is coming for a month, arrives on Monday, so I think we will make the balcony a project while she is here and have a great time with it. This is a windy spot, so you'll probably laugh when you see it, but I'm going to have to use lots of bungee cords and string to batten everything down.
I am so glad that it's warming up and I can almost put some things outside. This time of year is wet and grey, and the colour will be wonderful to look at!

It is too cold here for anything. Winter is the way it feels. I am hoping for some warmth soon though.

alice wrote:

It is too cold here for anything. Winter is the way it feels. I am hoping for some warmth soon though.

Want to swap? Two days ago, we hit 100. It's cooling down a little right now, and we are supposed to get some rain soon, but this is very hot for April here.

Ann

No, Ann, I don't like too much heat. Warming up is easier than cooling down.

You got that right.

Ann