Thursday, April 2, 2009

A Room with a View

You may remember this post a while back that gave you an insight into the view from my bedroom window. I tend to take moments, when I can, to gaze out the window, or the open door, and take in the balcony garden - it is surprisingly calming. When writing a thesis on Third Reich memoirs calming things are definitely necessary.

To jog your memory this was how it looked then - full of ripening tomatoes!


This is how it looks now in all its early Autumn beauty.


There are the last of the tomatoes, Purple Cherokees hanging on for dear life as a wilt attempts to consume them whole.


The red geraniums, bought to add colour in the heat seem much larger than they really are, contrasting with the green and brown. The brown-filled pots with stakes have seeds in them, mostly snow pea seeds. When their little heads poked out of the soil a few days ago, I was pretty excited. I will trellis the poles as I go making a lovely little canopy of green stir fry veggie goodness. In the middle is an early brocolli. Hopefully it will sprout before it is completely covered over. It is such a shame that sunflowers and sowpeas are alleopathic, because it would be so much fun to train a snow pea up the stalk of the sunflower growing in this lot. He is starting to form a head now, can't wait to see if it is yellow or orange or red (surprise packet).


In other pots we have yellow carrots, bush beans, corainder (wrong time of year but I just want to try) and some flowers, of which I cannot really remember the variety. The bush beans have also started to push out of the ground, very exciting!


Autumn has also been designated as the time I move the lemon tree back into the full sun. In Summer it hid around the corner, making room for tomatoes in the sunnier positions and enjoying the ample but mottled sun in the back corner of the balcony. A few friends said it would never survive there but they were wrong. It thrived, indicating just how much sun does get to that part of the balcony, and that IBG knows best for the balcony. I think in Winter this warmer and slightly sheltered position will be better. He has about 4 lemons at present, all green, but promising nonetheless.If I look out the door I see greenery and colours and lushness. It wont stay that way for long, this Indian Summer we have will pass and the cooler weather will become the mainstay. Still enjoying it while i still can!!! Do you have any garden areas that you find yourself gazing at for periods of time that might be considered a little too long?

4 comments:

Tessa at Blunders with shoots, blossoms 'n roots said...

You sure do a lot with a small space- very impressive! Happy April!

Dan said...

Four lemons, that's awesome. Heard on the news today about a bunch of cars being wrapped up for April fools in Melbourne. Funny how often they have Australia on the international part of the news, I never even noticed before starting to read your blog.

Anonymous said...

I garden on a smallish balcony and yes, I often find myself gazing in that direction, eyes glazed over...dreaming of the acreage I used to own! :-) I'm always studying the space to see how I can better make use of the space.

Chandramouli S said...

Woweeeee! Lemons! That's great, Prue. I'm sure Lemons make the farewell to tomatoes a bit easy. Strange that when it's Spring here, it's already Autumn in Australia. Interesting...