The confinement experiment has turned into a mini urban-garden on my balcony. And things have moved forward nicely.
The radish plants are growing nicely, and even if there has so far been a handful of roots to eat, the greens are so pretty that they will shortly end up in our plates in the shape of pie or soup or pesto. One limitation however goes back to the first plan however to use cotton pads as a base: because the roots went straight through the pads, I could not remove them in the various replanting steps. It means now that if I pull one radish, I am also pulling the other ones attached to the same pad, even if they are not ready. Oh well, I did not even think it would ever worked, so I am super happy of this outcome.
What I did not know is that they would grow sufficiently to even bloom. I know we are talking about plants here, but I never ever considered that radishes could grow flowers. Mindblowing for a person who has been buying already-pampered, ready-for-consumption radishes in the supermarket or in the Hofladen. The flower itself isn't impressive but again...I love it.
The taste is more sour and sharp than the supermarket radishes, let's say I would not snack on them without adding a good amount of salty butter and bread. But I was pleased to find the mustardy flavour I could not find lately.
The rest of the garden is doing amazing, too. the tomatoes are growing into a massive bush, and they already tell me they will soon need more space (yes, I talk to my plants, especially if they are good girls). One pot however will go straight into the family garden in Germany, one will be given to my son's school for the science days, one part will probably replace then the radish section when all is gone...and the rest, we will see. The slight issue is that I cannot remember whether I planted regular, big tomatoes, or cherry tomatoes; this will ultimately affect how much space will be needed on the long term for them to sustain. Moreoever, the cotton pad situation applies here, too. I tried to split the baby plants when possible by cuttting the pads, but in most cases it was already too late. So here we go, i am pampering my little jungle and we will see what comes out of it.
And because there is always some fun in random things, my son decided to plant apple seeds (with the utlimate plan to plant it in grandma's garden so that she can bake apple pies) as well as a potato we actually forgot to cook and eat. Both are now growing and will make their place on this little garden with hopefully the same motivation as the others.