One of the things i’ve learnt as i’ve grown up is that you need to make your own happiness. My husband said this during his speech at our wedding and it is wise advice. So i’ve been trying to find things in my life that calm me and make me happy when things aren’t going so well. One of these things is my little balcony garden.
My mum was always an avid and talented gardener and we had the most luscious and colourful garden when I was a child. I never had much interest or success until we moved into this apartment and I thought I would have a crack at it. What was the worst that could happen?
Being an avid tea drinker I had a couple of cute, empty tea caddys lying around taking up space so I thought, why not use them as pots? I chose some herbs that wouldn’t take up much space and wouldn’t mind being a bit stunted (as the caddys have very narrow openings there isn’t much room for the plants to grow).
I decided on purple sage (hidden at the back of this picture) and lemon thyme for this potting experiment
bashed a few drainage holes in the bottom of the tins using a screwdriver and hammer (much to hubs’s chagrin…)
and potted the herbs with a bit of potting mix.
It’s far from a perfect situation for these little herbies to grow as its difficult to get enough potting mix in that tiny hole once the plants are in but they look so damn pretty I don’t even care!
And here they are, enjoying their new home on my balcony!
These little herbs have been so resilient and given me a decent crop for my cooking. I can’t say that they have flourished but they have certainly prevailed against caterpillars, scorching hot afternoon summer sun and some seriously neglectful watering. I would probably choose tins with a wider opening or cut the top out of them next time. Please, learn from my mistakes! In the end, this project certainly helped increase my happiness and I really love sitting on my balcony and seeing my little plants grow against the odds. What small things do you do to choose happiness?
