It's almost time!!!

I know that it's early (as in, it's only the beginning of March)... but I am too excited to let that stop me! Garden planning has begun! For the past nearly ten years, I put an awful lot of hard work, effort and elbow grease into my garden... but it ALWAYS pays off! I have managed to grow more than enough food over the past few years to actually sustain myself more or less almost completely on my wee balcony garden alone. This gives me the tools and the resources to eat healthier, eat cleaner, and you can't get any more local than your own backyard!

So plans for this year.... these are still being toyed with, but it is pretty likely that most of these ideas will end up happening:

• Getting a wee bookshelf (made out of wire or something weather-proof) to put window boxes and flower pots on to give them some height (an advantage in balcony gardening)

• Hanging a piece of loosely-packed corkboard on the extremely-sunshiny wall on my balcony, then push seeds for things like herbs and tea leaves into it. Water with a spray bottle and grow things right off of your wall! No wasted space here!

• More re-purposed containers to use as planters... so old ice cream tubs, juice boxes (the large ones), soup cans and more can all be used to start seeds indoors and some even transfer outside when it's warm enough quite nicely

• Suspending a few pieces of fishing wire from the top of my balcony railing and attaching it to the wall along the back... then grow climbing plants along these! So things like morning glories, snow peas, beans... the possibilities are endless! (I might even try growing squash along this!)

• This year I am planning on growing a bunch of different edible flowers! Because why not

There are more ideas brewing in my mind, but I have yet to work out the details. All I know for sure is that the goal this year is COLOUR! Because colour means phytonutrients, which means better health for my man and I. Plants that I intend to grow are many and more varied this year than in the past:

• Snow peas (my personal fav)

• Beans

• Cherry tomatoes

• Zucchini (or some other type of squash)

• Strawberries in abundance (for Alex)

• Garlic

• White thyme

• Oregano

• Basil

• Some variety of mint

• Lemon balm

It looks like a lot, but I can fit all of that and probably more in the roughly 7 foot by 3 foot space outside my patio door. It just takes some creativity and some eco-friendly repurposing of things (like bookshelves).

A potentially-very healthy season is approaching! What are you growing in YOUR garden this year?