I am genuinely surprised that I am reaching phase 4 of my gardening articles here. It means that I haven't totally messed up yet, as my baby plants seem to have a good time on the balcony despite the colder temperatures and the lack of sunlight of the past week.
I could finally upgrade my game by visiting one of our "Bau und Hobby" shop where you can find everything you need to manage your garden, construction and other creative projects. I knew I surely looked like I was out of my comfort zone to the shop's employees (I was slightly over-dressed and picked my items quite randomly), but I enjoyed this and came back home with 90 liters (3 medium-size bags) of fresh soil especially made for balconies' planting activities (or so says the packaging at least).
As usual on each phase the plan is to move the plants carefully into a bigger pot with fresher soil. This has become necessary for the tomatoes, as I know from the last years that they will need a lot of space. And because I have so far so many baby tomato plants in their compostable pots, if all goes well I expect I will be able to donate some when they reach a safer size, especiallt the ones that are not totally tangled yet.
The radishes are still enjoying themselves, it seems, but because of my original plan to grow the seeds on cotton pads, the plants are very hard to split from each other. It's been also fairly complex, and in some cases impossible, to cover them entirely with soil and especially hide the pink roots underground. But again, a few days later after this fourth phase, I haven't noted any casualties so I do believe it is all going well for them.
Apart from these two survivor species, I have also planted seeds for basil, cucumber and flowers. And the next step will finally involve emptying the wooden boxes in our community composting bins, and one more time transfer the growing plants into a larger environment. Out of the two oxes one will host some tomatoes, the other one either a large bush of flowers, or some of the radishes.
See you on Phase 5!