Fuchsias on balcony

Fuchsias on balcony

I bought about a dozen plants last year from the Society for the Blind shop in town, unfortunately they weren’t named. :-(( They flowered very well during the summer then I dug them up, cut them back & put them in pots in the autumn. They were kept pretty dry in the mini-greenhouse in the most sheltered corner of the balcony. The majority of them survived the winter even though they were outside.

I planted them up in the centre of 9 hanging baskets in late May, they were making good progress till we went to Spain, to attend to my wife’s mother, for 3 weeks in July.

During that time our son looked after them but unfortunately when we got back home I saw they had, for the most part, dried up!

Obviously my son hadn’t given the baskets enough water! He is new to gardening never having grown anything other than a Pothos in his flat in Spain. He now has his own garden & often asks his father for help!

I cut them back very drastically, leaving no more than an inch of stem on the plants in the hope they will grow back again.

The little plants that surround the dead stems of the Fuchsias are Busy Lizzie (Impatiens) seedlings that I put in the baskets about a week ago. As the baskets have next to no flowers after the Fuchsias died I thought these would make a good show to compensate.

Unfortunately it wasn’t to be & only one has survived the drastic cut back. (In the circle)

Hanging wicker basket with Fuchsia & trailing Begonia on balcony:

Fuchsia flowering in green pot on balcony floor:

Fuchsia flowering in strawberry planter on balcony:

Fuchsia ‘Lady Boothby’ on balcony:

‘Lady Boothby’ is supposed to be a “climbing” Fuchsia but with me it’s never got higher than about a metre (3ft).

And to finish this blog here is a photo of our balcony taken from outside:

What a disastrous year for growing Tomatoes & Peppers!

What a disastrous year for growing Tomatoes & Peppers! I’m ashamed to post any pictures of them – or even take photos of them in the first place – let alone write about them! :-((

Garden Pearl & Gardener’s Delight seeds sown on balcony:

Germination was very good but it was the growing on of them that has been the problem! Other years I’ve had lovely plants for planting out in the middle of May – but not this year! The seedlings just sulked due to the very cold May we had!

Tomato seedlings in the kitchen:

After being potted up I moved them out onto the table in the most sheltered corner of our balcony but they made no progress at all during all of May!

Seedlings on table in corner of balcony:

Tomato Marmande seedlings just transplanted:

I took them down to the greenhouse on the allotment hoping they might pick up there, but no such luck!

I did plant some out in my own allotment, Plot 12A, a couple of weeks or so ago but even they don’t seem to have made much progress! They are all still little more than seedlings with a couple of pairs of true leaves! :-((

Tomatoes after mulching:

Tomatoes Marmande just planted out on balcony:

These were the only decent seedlings to really make any progress once in the greenhouse. I’d potted them up in 5-6″ pots before bring them back home on Saturday. I planted the up in some tomato growers set atop a growbag. Hopefully I’ll get some fruit from them before the growing season comes to an end!

Sweet Pepper ‘Corno di Toro Rosso’ germinating:

Sweet Pepper seedlings repotted on balcony:

TWO MONTHS LATER:

Sweet Peppers ‘Corno di toro rosso’ with true leaves:

Even after a month in the greenhouse on the allotment they still had made next to no progress! :-((

I ended up planting some of the seedlings in the green house border:

Others I planted out in a space on Gerry’s allotment:

I noticed on Monday that the Peppers planted in the greenhouse border seem to have grown a little & look better (or is it my fanciful imagination?)