A while back I made a post on my first attempt at doing some gardening, https://steemit.com/gardening/@shaunmza/me-gardening-well-sort-of setting out with high hopes and not a clue as to what I was doing.
Fast forward 3 months, and I found the seeds and planted them, too early in the season I might add.
Then i watched them grow in the pots outside, impatiently.
Eventually I saw a few green bits coming out the ground! It worked! I was actually growing something!
In my excitement I decided it was time to move them, so they had space... again, this was done too early. By this time my wife was rolling her eyes at me. π
I transplanted the lettuce plants, then watched as they struggled to gain traction. Feeling defeated and more than a bit frustrated at my own impatience I left them, except for watering them roughly every two days.
This weekend I decided to show them some love though, as they were losing a bitter battle with group of upstart weeds!
Here are some before pictures;
There are lettuce plants in that photo, promise!
Some plants have been more successful than others, more on that later.
I started by giving the plants a soaking, then started working the soil loose around the lettuce plants.
The rest was simply pulling the weeds out gently, trying not to break them off at the roots.
In the above photo you can see wood shavings, these were left over from my table making post, finished photo's https://steemit.com/makerwannabe/@shaunmza/making-a-table-on-a-balcony-part-5-all-done
The whole bed had a layer of the shavings, but it can get quite gusty on the balcony, so many of the shavings flew away.
Down but not completely out, I have planted some tomato seeds too, I am being much more patient with these, who knows maybe I can learn a thing or two about gardening!
Now I have a theory about why the plants by this wall have struggled so much to get going. When the wind blows, this wall deflects it straight onto the poor things whipping them about like mad! π
I don't know if tomato plants are a bit more hardy, I am going to try plant one there and see how it handles the stress.
This makes a change from the dev type stuff I have been doing lately and I hope if you do decide to try your hand at gardening, or anything new, you will push through the little bumps.
I may not be eating this lettuce any time soon, but so help me, I will grow food I can eat!