A Trio of Berries - Day 1

  

Gardening is not a hobby I came to early. I'm 30 years old and I have never managed to keep a houseplant alive for longer than a month or two. My proverbial thumbs are rather charcoal, all things considered. And yet, I find myself enjoying both the idea of caring for plants and the actual handling of the soil and the living leaves and sprouts. 

I had this idea of turning my balcony into snacking paradise last year. In March/April, I bought some climbing strawberries, like the ones below, but unfortunately they all started to rot after I only harvested maybe a handful. And I gave up for the year. Stupid strawberries, crossing my plans of becoming an earthy, gardeny person!

Now it's Sping again, though, and I'm back. And this time, I feel like tracking the progress might leave me with a better shot at achieving my garden dreams. Also, I'm hedging my bet with different crops.

Three climbing strawberry plants - Day 1 

Here we have the same strawberries that gave me so much trouble last year. I figure one repeat attempt does not constitute the definition of insanity and I'm keeping a very close look on them this time.

They came in three tiny plastic planters, and already have three blossoms (0 on plant A, 2 on plant B and 1 on plant C). I've used a little bit of berry fertilizer and watered them well, although I still haven't found clear information on how much and how often to water them now.

Raspberry Bush - Day 1

Here we have a raspberry bush. I'm not sure this one will carry fruit this year, but I'll keep my fingers crossed (not the black thumb ones, though). 

It looks good to me for now, with a variety of tender little leaves sprouting. I'll try to train the branches to come out of the mesh and hopefully won't have any berries inside where they might rot.

Blueberry Bush - Day 1

And these are the blueberries. It came in a much later stage of development, as you can see, already quite a plant with masses of buds that have started to open up after just a few hours in the morning sun. 

I keep all three on the balcony. It has sun from sunrise to about 1-2 pm and after that only the plant right at the corner (currently the blueberries) gets a little more sun for an hour or two until it's all in shadow. I'll see about rotating them a little so that they all get a fairly equal amount of sun.

And that's about it for now. Let's see how they develop over the next few weeks.

My next post will be on the raised herb garden I'm also planting on my balcony, and I'm also rather interested in getting into Bonsai, so we'll see about that!