Prepping My Estate For Doomsday

Garlic and Carrots

This morning I went out onto the estate balcony and did some gardening. I've been obsessed with small balcony vegetable garden videos, how to grow vegetables in pots videos, and vegetables that you need only buy once from the supermarket and then grow your own videos. I think it might have something to do with the world as we know it shutting down. Best to be a bit self-sufficient eh? Unfortunately I've no room for chickens let alone a cow.

I started by making a composter out of an old plastic rubbish bin. It's about 65 cm high and has a lid. I bashed some holes into the bottom for drainage and stood it on an old plastic tray. (Yes even and despite three years of decluttering, I still have some old things for upcycling. Very few though.)

The spring onions are sprouting
along with the garlic and carrots

Did you know that you can compost without worms? This is good because I don't have any worms and I don't like the thought of worms on my balcony. Maybe if my compost heap was way down at the end of a long garden. But it isn't. You do need soil to layer with the fruit and vegetable bits and egg shells. Luckily I have a huge bag of soil left over from the last time I fell in love with gardening. Apparently you also need to add some shredded paper or old egg boxes to provide carbon.

I learned that after sprouting your carrots and garlic in little pots of water, it's good to plant them near each other because the bugs that like carrots hate garlic and vice versa. I also read a blog post about things you can do with garlic scrapes (garlic shoots). So I'll be harvesting my first crop later to add to homemade humus.

Did you see that the spring onions are already sprouting? I intend to plant some more and harvest them as needed.

I also planted slices of tomato in quite a deep pot. The man on You Tube says it works. We'll see. The main thing is to keep everything moist. I think our rains have finished for this year so it'll be up to me. I tend to forget but I'm going to make a special effort not to this time.

Next stop lettuce and radishes and assorted herbs. Watch this space.