If there’s plants, I will probably kill them. A friend asked me to plant-sit last year, and you can imagine my relief when it turned out he himself had already killed the rosemary (he just hadn’t thrown it out yet). It got so bad I got a cactus. I have not killed it (yet), I am careful about not over-feeding it, but it has hurt me many many times already. It feels like the cactus and I have an honest relationship.
But there has been some progress with regards to my black thumb. It would be way too soon to call it the emergence of a green thumb, but the plant-casualty-rate has been low this year. I pilfered part of the indestructible rosemary bush from downstairs (it will grow back), and so far it hasn’t died on me. These pictures are from a month or two ago, and it’s summer, so everything has been growing like mad since then. I also received some plants from friends, and the tomatoes did bear fruit, as can be seen in previous posts, so I am really happy. My balcony looks, there’s no other word for it, lush.
What has helped immensely is my choices of plants this season. I won’t say all of those were fortunate, I got a Japanese wineberry, and while it is delicious and I will post about it in the future, it has hurt me even more than the cactus has. There were also some plants with an unknown (and one with mistaken) identity. Point is, except for a few tomatoes specifically meant for growing in flowering pots, I just got tough, woody, difficult to kill plants. I also sprinkled random seeds over the rest of the empty pots and waited to see where that got me. It worked 50/50: endless bee-flowers and weed-like plants, but almost no violets. Turns out it is nearly impossible to kill things like mint (I have 3 kinds of mint!) and raspberry bush-like plants. I’m considering getting small trees. And if you thin seedlings out enough, they do want to survive, so I just try and give them a fighting chance. Before this year I was under the mistaken impression that all plants are, by nature, suicidal, at least when they’re near me. So far, none of this has resulted in lots and lots of food (12 tomatoes, a berry or 17, and more mint then I know what to do with). But I also haven’t killed any of the bushes yet. So that’s progress.
My cats have (of course) taken a shine to the balcony. As long as you keep sure there’s plants in the pot, they will not poop in them. They’re very happy with the balcony because they can be outside no matter how bad the rain is. They usually come back in smelling of green and rain and earth and dust (or just dust when it’s very hot and dry weather and they use the balcony for shade) and seem very happy. They sometimes leave paw prints in my room and in the bath. They even let me have breakfast with them on the balcony when they’re in a good mood. No seriously, it’s really nice to just sit with them on the balcony and enjoy the illusion that I am surrounded by green and nature and water and furry creatures and bees (which I am, but it’s mainly cars and a gigantic polluting road on the other side of the water).
I will add a completely gratuitous cat-comic for your amusement. I was trying to take Betty’s picture because she looked very regal when this happened. It is not supposed to happen and I need to find a solution because she’s not allowed on the balcony railing. The upstairs neighbours’ cat tried to walk on it, but then she jumped over and died. It was quite horrifying, and in this case I’d better be safe then sorry. But the comic does make for a nice look into inter-cat relationships in our household.
