MY GARDEN

Hello My Gals and Guys,

So, it’s Spring Time and I for one cannot wait to see all my lovely friends in the garden come to life, from crocus to lavender and garlic to peppermint.

It’s such an exciting time of year with all the new growth and the sowing of new life for the garden.

My little piece of heaven is on my balcony which looks out over the River Lee in Cork City. I am a Kerry gal but live in Cork. I have done for most of my adult life, with few a travel breaks in between. I also went to college here in CIT.

What I call my urban balcony garden, is everything to me. I grow food I can eat and working on it is so therapeutic and calming in this mad world. An hour goes by so quickly out there.

 I grow all the herbs I need, all the flowers I love and grow things I will eat.

I try to only plant and grow plants I can use in some way, either eat or use for the house or skin care. But as I love many flowers and plants, it’s not always easy to keep them all useable. For example, all the plants I grew from seed last year were all usable, I planted wild Rocket, Ruby Mustard Streak and baby Kale to name a few. I sowed Parsley, Dill and Basil. The flowers were just as important as they added colour to all our food and were nutritious as well as being colourful additions to the garden. Among the many I grew were Borage, Calendula marigolds, pansy and dwarf nasturtiums (the leaves of these were amazing).

I kept many seeds from last years crops so I didn’t have to purchase them this year.

As many of the seed as I could last year, I bought from The Irish Seed Savers Scariff in County Clare Ireland. They are an amazing group. Most of what they do is keep and cultivate seeds from native and heirloom plants, trees, fruit tree and plants, flowers, herbs, onions, vegetable and lettuces. Anything you can imagine really so please go and support them, you can look them up on www.irishseedsavers.ie

With Spring on our doorstep, I’m really looking forward to sowing some new varieties and watching lasts years plants grow and flourish again. The seeds I kept from last year will all be sown soon along with a few I’ve picked up recently. I grew a lot of Peas and Beans last year, but I have found as I have in the past, they take a lot of water and are not very suitable for my balcony. I feel they are best suited in the ground. Also the tomatoes and courgettes started off great but as the weather at the end of the summer was not great my crop didn’t flourish. SO as a result of what I learned last year I’m changing thing up this year.

Its going to be beetroots, radish, more lettuces, onions and garlic. I can’t wait!!!

I actually planted organic garlic last year and it will be ready soon. I will be able to replant one of the bulbs and keep the cycle going.  I will do a post about the whole process once I harvest this crop.

I try to use nothing unnatural and I try to keep it as organic as possible. SO no pesticides or nastiest allowed. I love to see the bees come and go and I must admit I adore ladybugs as they are my biggest(littlest) aphid killer….lol.

The fact of the matter for me the whole process  is exciting. I just love the feeling of growing something yourself and being able to cut and eat it just feet the my kitchen.

I will show you what works for me on my urban balcony garden throughout the year and show you how I use what I grow…..Seed to soul.

Its sowing season soon and I will be as busy bee making use of the soil, pots and seeds I have. It is not always easy growing on a balcony but I do my best to keep it simple, cost effective and use my space wisely.

I’m looking forward to sharing my experiences of my Balcony Garden with you and hopefully learning lots along the way.

Kind regards

Sarah