Little Stalky's Winter Garden



Compost is a go!

  This morning I've been out battling the elements as I attempted to have a sort out in the garden.  Balcony.  My balcony garden.  You know what I mean.  You may or may not be aware that I have been planning to start composting and have as yet to start the process due to the fact that Mystical Roo and I were looking for an effective method to seal the bottom of our bottomless compost bin.  Well I've fixed that problem and today I can confirm that Mystical Roo and I are officially getting our compost on.  Whoop whoop!  So what was my solution to my bottomless problem?  A bit of plastic and some sticky tape.  Oh yes, it's technical stuff.  Mystical Roo snaffled me a large sheet of plastic from work and handed me a roll of green tape.  I don't know if this tape has any special sticky or waterproof qualities but it seems to be doing the job.  It's not sellotape, it's that big tape that you might use if you wanted to kidnap someone.  Or cover a hole in your paddling pool.  Any hoo, I hoicked the compost bin back indoors, whereby I set it down over the plastic, which I had carefully folded so that it was three sheets thick on the bottom.  See, technical.  I told you.  Then I got crazy with the sticky tape.  As you can see from the attached picture the compost bin is now taped up and ready to go.  You may also note that there is an empty plant pot sat atop the compost bin.  This is to stop the lid flying off and heading out to sea.  So I've actually started filling my compost bin.  From the other photograph you may notice there a couple of plant dudes missing from the balcony.  The tomato plants and the chilli plant.  They're now in tiny pieces at the bottom of the compost heap.  I think I actually got a bit sad chopping up my chilli plant.  We'd had good times.  But I think the plants would be happy to know that they will continue to contribute to the garden even though they've technically died.  So now the balcony is a little less crowded.  In one corner we've got the mint, who is really flourishing in this wet weather, the lemon tree, caterpillar free for several weeks now, the parsley, looking dinky because we keep eating him and the rosemary, which in the few days we were away has decided to sprout numerous purple flowers.  Next we have the thyme, which is looking a bit woody but seems happy enough, big strawberry plant who is, in this photo, flashing his strawberries and next to him is the baby strawberry plant.  Lastly there's my basil plant and my thyme plant.  The basil is looking less bushy than before but is so much healthier looking than when I reported he was suffering in the cold.  The thyme just seems hardcore and happy to put up with anything.  He's cool.  So there we have it.  That's my winter garden.



From left to right:  Mint, Lemon Tree, Parsley,
Rosemary, Thyme, Big Strawberry, Little
Strawberry, Basil and Thyme