Window Sill Compost: Did it work?

my window sill compost

That's the question now, did my window sill compost project even work?!

Hard to say! To be honest, this was not an actual compost pile since it was not exposed to insects, heat, and moisture as a "normal" compost pile would be (remember I live in the city), so there was no real degradation that took place, outside of the drying of the ingredients.

Nevertheless, I assume that while it may have had different effects, that it had at least some sort of effect on my plants. What you see pictured above is the end result of the ingredients dried, crushed, and mixed together. I then mixed this in with the soil in each pot. If nothing else, this should have provided my soil with a lot of nitrogen, potassium, calcium, and other trace minerals.

Due to the construction project on my building, my vegetables are less than ideal this year, so it's really hard to say if the compost helped or not, but I like to think it did!

I just stumbled upon this article on Apartment Therapy about making an odorless "true" compost bin for indoors, something to consider for next year.

How about you - have you tried adding food scraps to your planters and had either success or regrets?

The season has now officially begun

sprouted zucchini plant, a few days old

I would just like to announce that the edible balcony garden season has now begun!!!

The winner of the germination challenge is: zucchini! It sprouted within days!

A close second goes to: the tomatoes! One of each kind has showed itself.

And a few days later, the jalapeno plants decided to come up, much sooner than I'd expected. Germination on the other chili plants was described to be 10-14 days, so they're a whole week ahead of the game.

As soon as it starts to warm up (not really a start in sight, and it is still below freezing at night here, ugh, when is winter gonna be over?!), I will start some seeds outdoors, such as radishes,  (red) onion bulbs, and lettuce.

Will also get a few new herb plants to fill the holes in my one planter - sorry, not growing herbs from "scratch" this year, it just takes too long and the warm season here is pretty short! Luckily it looks like several of my herbs have survived yet another winter, such as my already-regrowing chives, rosemary, parsley (!), thyme, sage, and oregano. Great! Don't know if my lemon balm made it through the wintery past few weeks, but if not, I would like to replace it and get some basil and some mint. I have a hard plastic separator that I use to keep the mint roots from taking over the whole pot - basically just a piece of plastic that separates the soil.

Hope it starts warming up soon!

Seeds started, no April Fool's joke!

seeds started in my mini greenhouse

I hope everyone had a nice Easter weekend! I did - finally got some seeds started a few days ago, and here are the results!

• #1 and #2- cherry tomatoes
• #3 and #4 - tomatoes, bottom one is actually a variety made for pots
• #5 and #6 - zucchini
• #7 and #8 - "white lightning" habanero chili peppers
• #9 and #10 - purple jalapenos
• #11 and #12 - jalapenos

So excited! I had ordered a few kinds of chili pepper seeds last summer from Amazon, but since they came late I decided to hold onto them until this year. Am looking forward to seeing how they do - I have had a fair amount of luck with chili peppers on my balcony in the past few years, so I am excited to try a few different kinds of fresh chilis - the taste of the actually pepper is amazing!

I decided to forgo and cucumbers or squash this season for two reasons:

1. I haven't had any of my squash plants bloom, ever!
2. I think I need bigger pots for squash and cucumber, but I'm not sure that I want to sacrifice the space for a plant that may not produce again!
3. It's too windy on my balcony for vertical gardening, so there is little space for the vines even IF they had bigger pots

zucchini flowers (front in a box)
sold at Campo de Fiori outdoor market, Rome

Nonetheless, I am going to try zucchini again - not giving up on that quite yet! I did get a few to come last year, but were very small (like 3-4 inches long), but I got lots of flowers.

My thought is that if I can tell that the vegetables aren't going to get bigger, I can just eat the flowers! On my trip to Rome with my mom last May, we got to try fried zucchini blooms, a local specialty. I've heard of them served filled with cream cheese, but what we tried were just lightly dusted with flour and deep (or pan?) fried. We even saw where you could buy them with the mini zucchini still attached - at the Campo de Fiori outdoor market in Rome. They look to be about the size that I have produced on my balcony.

A special treat! Here's a recipe from About.com to try, or a stuffed version from food & style. Can't wait!

Piles of snow on my balcony!

Not spring yet on my balcony...

After a few days of really teasing us all here (see last post), winter struck back again, and hard! I think we got more snow the end of last week and the beginning of this week than we've had all winter, no joke! In northern Germany here, winters have the reputation of being pretty mild, which means lots of rain and gray, gloomy days. Not too good for the psyche.

And just when I and several others I know were totally ready and planing (and planting!) for spring, BOOM, tons of snow and freezing temperatures! It snowed a few days straight here, which is quite unusual! We have had more sun, which is strange...

a pre-storm pic, my cat's enjoy the snowfall on the balcony

Anyway, luckily (other than my newly-purchased lemon balm) I re-potted my flowers in pots that I subsequently moved indoors upon predictions of snow and below-freezing temps. They are still doing ok, but as am I, they are looking forward to the great outdoors again!

On another note, it is high time to start your seedlings indoors! Do you have a little indoor greenhouse? If not, don't despair - just keep the seedlings well watered and in a warm place. I've even done silly things like put a clear tupperware over a pot, or draped a plastic bag over it - just until the seeds germinated.

So, am off to start some seeds and do some planning - check back soon for more pics and plans! :)

First Planting of the Season + Lemonade on the Balcony...

check out those blue and white stripes!

I couldn't resist - I can't wait any longer ..... for SPRING! :)


Today was actually a sunny day and although it's 46°F, it's not terribly windy and actually fairly pleasant for being outside - which means I got started on preparing my balcony for the new season by giving it a spring cleaning!

1. Make lemonade (see above) for this thirsty gardener: juice lemon, add lemon & juice plus 2 Tbs sugar to a shaker. Add some ice cubes, fill to 3/4 full with cold water, and shake!
2. Cut off dead parts of any plants that survived the winter (aka some herbs)
3. Remove dead plants from pots (left them out over winter for the birds and the like to forage in)
4. Remove leaves and such from balcony, still need to wash the floor so my cat can go out there and not bring the dirt inside!
5. Removed some old soil from the pots.
6. Transferred last year's bean soil (see last post) to other pots.
7. Re-potted some flowers I bought: they are both Primula Vulgaris, a type of primrose. The blue one really caught my eye - it's called "zebra blue". Love it paired up with the orange!



my happy lemon balm :)

8. Gave my lemon balm a new home - doesn't it look happy?

More cleaning up to come, and tons of planting of course! Keep checking back! 

Germination Charts for Outdoor Planting

Mid-February means you really can start planning your garden ordering seeds!

I know how easy it is to get the itch to get planting, too - I also have fallen into the trap of starting plants too early indoors and had them get too long, leggy, and pale before it was warm enough to get them out! Talk about Spring fever!

Make sure to check your seed packages to determine when to start your seeds indoors, most packages do mention a time span on the back.

For those who are planning on starting their seeds directly in the outdoors, I've found these 2 lovely charts to guide you - they provide an overview of which seeds will germinate in what amount of time at what temperature. Handy!

Here's another one split up by temperature:

A big thanks to Roots Nursery for these charts! Check out their website or like them on Facebook!

Companion Planting

Since it's still pretty early in the season, now's the time to think about companion planting. For those who aren't sure what that is, it is the method of planting certain plants next to each other to complement their mutual growth or function (such as repelling mosquitoes).

This is a great idea and especially important for small space and container gardening, not only because space needs to be maximized, but also because certain plants actually provide nutrition that other plants need (a symbiotic relationship creating a natural fertilizer for pots with little soil). This is something that I definitely am going to take more into consideration this year...or, well, take into consideration this year, I should say.

I've found a few charts to help you decide what goes with what, so have fun planing!

A simple chart including explanations:

(click image to enlarge)

A nice and thorough chart, including functions as well:

(click image to enlarge, or click here to open as a .pdf file)

Seems easy enough to stick a few onions here and there!