In the Deep Midwinter

The snow that was piled high on the jumble of the Balcony Farm at Christmas has only just cleared, and looking out from the living room I can see just what a mess it's all  become.

So it seemed like a good time to reflect on what has happened since this much neglected blog, and my slightly less neglected Balcony Farm began last Spring.

First, the worms are still alive!   Having been rescued at the beginning of December when a layer of frost was beginning to form on the top and around the edges, now the wormery is back on the balcony wrapped in insulation and covered in plastic.  I've just had a peek under the lid and some fat, kingly Eisenia Feitida were wriggling just under the surface of the bedding.  The insulation is keeping my little guys, if not tropical, then at least at room temperature.  However, and it's a big however, with the insulation around the sides and on top, my wormery has pretty much doubled in size and become a big, plastic-covered silver Space Turd that I'll be living with until Spring.  But I've successfully migrated the little guys from one section to another (this happened back in September) and just emptied about ten litres of vermicompost from the side I started feeding in May so I feel like my basic design concept and execution has proved workable.

Second - work surface and storage!  What a pain!  Of course when you think of making your balcony into a garden, what you focus on is the garden - nice stuff to eat and look at.  So what do you do when you want to mix potting compost, pot out, store bags of vermiculite, vermicompost, used soil in plastic bags and pots?  I don't know.  That's why I'm asking.  Having soil covered kitchen counters a couple times a week just isn't nice.

Just outside the balcony doors we have a stack of three IKEA recycling bins.  Two are for recycling glass, cans and plastic; one is for garden waste and other compostable material I don't want to feed straight to the worms.  The stack comes to just above waist height, which - when cleared of broken crockery and detritus - has proved a small but workable surface for potting out seedlings and mixing compost.  Next to the stacked bins is one of those plastic greenhouses that are about six feet hight and eighteen inches deep the garden centre sells desperate people.  At the moment the bottom is occupied by my failed sweet potato experiment that I haven't cleared out yet, and the other shelves are piled with empty pots, Tomato Feed containers and feather light Vermiculite bags.  Functional but not attractive.

And that is really the basic point here.  On a balcony, or a patio you just don't have the latitude for anything that looks cluttered, or out of place, or ugly.  You don't have the space for it not to stand out like a bag of hammers in a beauty contest.

So that comes next - solving the problem of aesthetics posed by the need for work area and adequate storage.  And the Space Turd.  After that, immediately after that because it's already mid-January, planning the transition from Balcony Farm to Edible Heritage Herb Balcony.  I enjoyed my Toy Town crops of carrots and potatoes, and my unexpected masses of tomatoes.  But I'm an allotment gardener now; so no pressure to grow everything on the balcony.  More pressure to create an outstanding, beautiful and edible small space.