Thing are going good. Well, mistakes have been made, but I'm still satisfied with the results. The mistakes are putting out the Moonflowers to early and using loose, low-nutrition soil to cultivate the plants in. I thought the loose soil would let the plants grow big roots, but the soil didn't supply some of the plants with the right amounts of nutrition to grow big.

On this picture you can see almost all of the plants. It is only Sensitive plants that hasn't been moved out.

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A lot of stuff has happen since the last update. I have replanted many flowers and have started to cultivate many more new flowers.

A few French marigold have been placed in their final locations. Here is a picture on two of them.

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Everything is growing well. The decision to stop using pelt pieces and use loose soil in milk carton instead seems to be right. I have hardly been needed to look after the plants. The soil have been keeping itself moist for long periods of time.

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This years project to enrich my balcony with flowers has started with the least likely candidate, Wallflower. The flower that I failed to cultivate last year and said I wasn't going to try again. I decided to try cultivate them again because I still had a few seed left and I noticed that they could be cultivated as early as February. Might as well start of the project with a new try. This year I'm trying to cultivate them exactly as told by the instruction on the seed bag. Placing them on top of moist soil instead of starting them of on moist toilet paper.

This year I also decided to try using recycled materials from home instead of buying new peat pots. Both for personal economical reason and ecological reasons. Above I have converted two milk cardboard boxes into two pots for four small flowers each.

Well, the different flowers on my balcony have managed the summer differently. The summer has given the flowers a period of sunny days followed by a period of rainy days and then a few more sunny days. Some of the flowers had difficulty managing the weather changes. I could have been more active helping the plants survived the summer, but sickness and forgetfulness got in the way.

I happy with the flowers I cultivated this year, sadly I wasn't able to sit on my balcony and appreciate the flowers as much as I wanted.

Blue Mink
The Blue Mink grew well and looked good for most of the summer. Only when the sun came back did some of them wither a little.

I thought the Blue Mink look good and grew well and I might cultivate Blue Mink again some day.

French Marigold
The French Marigold flowers handled the summer well. Except the ones that were placed amongst the Blue Mink. They were gradually out-rivaled by the Blue Mink and died out.

I liked that the French Marigold flowers bloomed quickly. They made sure my balcony wasn't looking boring during the early summer. Because of this I might cultivate them again next year.

Painted Daisy
The Painted Daisy couldn't handle the rainy days. During that time I was sick and had no energy to move it to a place were it would rain less on them. So sadly they didn't grace my balcony with their flowers as much as they could have.

I liked the Painted Daisies, I thought they had nice flowers, but I don't think I'll cultivate them again for my balcony. Maybe some day when I have a garden I will cultivate them again.

Jasmine Tobacco
The Jasmine Tobacco flowers looked good the whole summer. They survived both the sunny and the rainy days with success.

This is the second year I've had Jasmine Tobacco flowers on my balcony and I think I will have them again next year. Next year I might cultivate Jasmine Tobacco flowers of many different colors.

Wallflowers
I didn't succeed in cultivating Wallflowers and I don't think I will ever try again.

Thing are overall going great and my balcony is looking nice. Most of the flowers from Project Summer flower 2009 have been moved to their permanent pot and spot and some new flowers have moved in. Unfortunately most of my photos on the balcony didn't turn out that great, but I don't feel like reshooting them so I'm using them anyway. I want to post this little report as soon as possible.

In the upper half of my shelf I now have three French Marigold and two new flowers. The two new plants are both birthday gifts. The plant with the blue flowers is a Hydrangea and the one with the yellow flower I don't know what it is.

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All my little flowers are doing great and have now been moved over to small pelt pots. Now I just need to wait for the weather to warm up, so I can get them accustom to the outside and later permanently place them outside.

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My little plants are all growing and looking good. These photos was taken about two weeks after I started to cultivate the plants.

French Marigold

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Project "Summer flowers 2009" has launched. This year I'm trying to cultivate Blue Mink (Ageratum houstonianum), French marigold (Tagetes patula), Jasmine Tobacco (Nicotiana alata), Painted Daisy (Chrysanthemum carinatum), Wallflower (Erysimum linifolium).

I started cultivating the seeds by putting them on wet toilet paper and then sealing them in plastic boxes. I'm did this so I can see which seeds will start growing before I put them in any soil.

I wasn't sure this technique would work for all five flowers, but it didn't take long for four of the flowers to start growing in the boxes. So far (three days in) only the Jasmine Tobacco hasn't sprouted. Hopefully it will within a week.

As soon as I discovered the seeds had sprouted I replanted 12 seeds of each plant in their own pelt pieces. This will hopefully give me more than enough flowers for the summer.

This year I will also not be putting a transparent lid over the pelt pieces. I don't want the plants to get accustom to a warm and moist environment. Earlier years when I covered the pelt pieces the plants were visually shocked/distressed by the climate change once the lid was removed. I want them to be accustom to a "harsh" environment from the beginning.

A little French marigold sprout.