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Balcony Garden 2013 was the year of trial and error on my balcony, and error mostly won out. The wooden "pallet garden" my dad made for me was mostly a fail, except the violas did well on the top row. And I did get one salad's worth of mini radishes. But the cat grass, lettuce, swiss chard and spinach either got ruined by pests or never came up. Those were all on the bottom two rows, so maybe that had something to do with it. I think the main problem was it was so shallow - at only 2 inches deep. Too bad, it was a great climbing gym for the cats. It's bound for the recycling bin.  Though I thought it was dying after the June cold snap, my basil ended up coming back and flourishing. I got 28 servings of pesto out of it, so that actually was a win! I used almonds in the pesto because I'm too cheap to buy pine nuts, and I didn't use any parmesan, but it's delicious! Basil pesto, ready to be frozen in single serving portions in ice cube trays. Another win: my...

I love succulents. These two are doing really well on my balcony. The hanging one I bought at a plant sale last fall and it's wintered on my windowsill. It loves it outside though! The little red flowers hang down about a foot! But... *sigh* For the second year in a row, my balcony garden is a bit of a failure. I thought the shallow planter my dad made that I added to my balcony wouldn't drain well and would get swampy. The opposite has happened - it's so shallow the plants drink up the water so quickly that on hot days I have to water twice so everything doesn't wilt! The violas are doing well, they spring back if they wilt and are generally filling up their row colourfully. The second row however, as you can see in the photo, is dead. This was my basil - my favourite part of the garden. We've mostly had rainy, grey, and cold days this June. Apparently that's not optimal growing conditions for baby basil. I picked what I could before the stalks turned brown and...

It's officially time to plant my balcony garden! This year, I'm trying something different. In the past I've planted a lot of little pots. This led to a big jungle of a garden, but I never used half of it either because I'd planted crops which I never ended up eating or the bugs got to it first! So I decided to try a pallet garden this year. I asked my dad to help me find a pallet, but he insisted on making me a vertical garden to size. This was very nice of him, and he even added a bit of customization - but the planter is a heavy beast! Because I'm worried the weight will break my balcony (shh, don't tell the rest of the inmates), and because there is the potential for a lot of edibles, I decided to just plant my enormous vertical garden with violas, basil, lettuce, spinach, radishes and swiss chard, plus two zucchini. I'm a bit worried the vertical garden is too shallow, so I'm not sure if anything will grow well. We'll see. A friend also swappe...