the box and the balcony

Two years ago, we decided that we wanted to try and grow our own vegetables. Back then, we had a garden, but we knew almost nothing about gardening, let alone planting and harvesting food. Our first harvest was nothing much (post in Icelandic here) and even though we did some planting last year we moved out of the apartment and away from the garden before we ever found out how it worked out. So the only real success we've had with gardening are our indoor grown herbs. 

But we refuse to give up. Third time's a charm, right? So this year we're making do with what we've got - our balcony. It shields from the wind and faces south so those should actually be the right conditions. Plus we wont have any bugs or stray animals interfering with the crops, either. My co-worker gave me this huge wooden box last summer (takk, Berglind!) and Oddur just worked his magic with the saw and then filled it with 200 liters of soil. He also came up with tying a string across to make it easier to give each vegetable it's designated space. Úlfur then drew a map of the box, should we forget what went where. I went to the thrift store and bought a 400 ISK wooden box, perfect for lettuce and such, which we plan to hang on the balcony fence in a few weeks. 

We also planted some more herbs, rosemary, mint, coriander, and some vegetable to grow indoors in pots, like tomatos and peppers. Everybody got to participate, even Ósk. (Up to a point, at least). Now we'll have to wait, water and wonder. Was our planting any good? Will it snow more? Is spring really here? We think it is... we really do! And we have plans for making our balcony garden super nice to make up for the fact that we don't have a "real" garden. A part of that plan is to use almost only thrifted things and buy as little new as possible. I'll post more about that as we go along. 

Best wishes!

Sigurlaug Elín