Assorted tomatoes, 2008.

I know it may seem crazy, especially since it has been snowing heavily today, to already plan this year’s kitchen garden. To my defense the seeds for the chili peppers need to be planted already this month so I ordered them today, together with a lot of other seeds.

Because of my rocky garden I plant most of the vegetables in pallet collars. Two stacked pallet collars are enough for most vegetables but if you stack three you get a comfortable working height.

The seeds that I was most happy with last summer will be planted again this year:
Yellow pear shaped tomatoes
Black cherry, tomato
Gardener’s Delight, tomato
Crystal apple cucumber
White Icicle, radish
French breakfast, radish
Performer, spring onion

French breakfast and white icicle radishes, 2008.

I didn’t really like the Bloody Butcher and Tigrella tomatoes, so this year I’ll substitute them with wild tomatoes and Tumbling Tom red. It was too much work with protecting the pointed head cabbage from deers, snails and insects so I’ll skip it this year. The swiss chard wasn’t used except for one or two dishes that I didn’t even blog about. I’ll probably try carrots and beets again this year, I just need to protect them better from the deers that keep pulling them up.

Yellow pear shaped tomato, 2008.

The Physalis plant that I had last year was bought, but this year I’ve ordered seeds for the variant Goldie. I didn’t succeed with the watermelon Sugar Baby as I planted it too late and when I finally managed to get a tiny watermelon after weeks of trying to polinate it with a small brush, it just took a day before I found a large bite on it (I suspect a snail!). However I’ll try to plant another Sugar Baby Melon this year and also Jenny Lind and Sweet Siberian as they apparently do pretty well in a cold climate.

Beet, one of few that wasn’t pulled up by the deers. 2008.

Hopefully my Strawberries and wild Strawberries will survive the winter, but I will still try Temptation from seeds. I’ll also try red onion (Red Brunswick), Pak Choi and two corns: Ashworth and Painted Mountain. I’m pretty sure that the deers will like the corn so I need to make a fence around the pallet collar.

I didn’t try any chili plants last summer but this year I’ll try 5 types: Early Jalapeno, Anaheim, Espelette and Hungarian Yellow Wax Hot. They will be planted as soon as I get the seeds. The rest of the seeds will be planted in March/April.

Most herbs I buy as plants, but try I’ll plant a lot of cilantro seeds as I use it soo much when cooking food. Are there any more seeds that I should try this year?

Wow, what an exciting week I’ve had! The weekend arrived extremely quickly and now I’m just trying to catch my breath. Today I picked some of the homegrown physalis fruits that I planted in early summer. Perfect candy with no weird ingredients, just pure natural. If you’re feeling decadent you can of course dip them in melted chocolate….

Raspberries on the balcony.
For many years I didn’t have any balcony and was dreaming about one all the time. On all my walks I always had my head turned up in the air looking at other people’s balconies. When we searched for an appartment here in Stockholm my most important demand was a balcony and I was thrilled when we finally bought one appartment with a small balcony but also two separate french double doors (were there is no space for any plants). The balcony is small, 2.8 square meters which is about 30 square feet. Most people would only buy one small plant for this kind of balcony, tops and that would be it. Well, I’ve already shown you my rhubarb plant which by the way is ready to be harvested again. Today I’ll show you my raspberry plant, my two wild strawberry plants and the flowers. The raspberry I bought was and is marked as Allgold, which is supposed to give yellow raspberries but today I finally had to realize that it was incorrectly tagged in the garden center and that it’s a normal red raspberry plant. Here you can read more about Allgold and as you can see it’s far from my pictures… I’m a bit dissapointed but the raspberries are still delicious!

The wild strawberry plants are quite small and therefor planted in two smaller pots and everytime I pass by I pick a sweet red berry. The wild strawberry plants are not demanding at all and just continue to bloom and give berries. I’m not sure how they will survive winter as it’s harder with small plants, but I’ll try to “dress” them warm when snow comes.

Besides of the rhubarb, raspberry and wild strawberries I also have a climbing rose called New Dawn which blooms continuously during the summer, a clematis called Multi Blue which blooms from spring to autumn, a bamboo plant for the cats and finally a Lilac called Palibin which is very suitable for pots. Well, all my plants are suitable for pots and grow very well so I really recommend them, just make sure to have pots and containers that are as large as possible. You can plant pretty much everything in pots, including fruits, veggies and berries. You can imagine how many more plants I would have if I had a larger balcony :-)

And last but not least we have two chairs and one table, so we can eat breakfast in the morning or have a nice dinner outside. All on 2.8 square meters. What do you have on your balcony?

The climbing rose New Dawn and the clematis Multi Blue.

The raspberry plant.

Bowser attacking the bamboo plant, which is safe for cats but not from them.

The lilac blooms and smells divine during spring.