I bought new pots for tomato plants (this year from Home Depot): round, which I thought would be less wasteful since the corners of my square pots never grew much that wasn't overwhelmed by the tomato plants anyway . New pots also required a little change to the bottom-watering system.

March 3 A seedling tray for the peppers, and a kit (red) from the dollar store for some basil, which didn't work as well as another kit (green) for cucumbers.		March 22: still winter outside		March 29 April 12		April 30 May 20 May 22		May 23 More absorbent lining for water retention for all my pots. I had more seedlings than I could give away or bring myself to throw out so the balcony is going to be crowded this year.		May 26
July 1 July 12 The first edibles start showing themselves.				July 13		Pigeon visitors: this pair of pigeons started showing up daily for a few hours, walking around, preening, and resting in the shade of the tomato plants. It's the first time that I've lived here that any birds have landed on my balcony for any significant time. They visited regularly for a couple weeks, and then others stopped by but never to stay for long. Some still do.				July 27
July 30 Some flowers to add a little colour. These ones caught the light especially well.		August 2 Finally, some eats! The cucumbers weren't very tasty, and not my favourite kind, but they were good for salads. The cherry tomatoes were a surprise since I was sure I bought a different kind.		August 5		The downside to having so many plants on a narrow balcony is that there was no good way to photograph them, even individually. I need a selfie stick or a drone. And PM and I never had beers on the balcony once all summer. :(				August 31 September 12 I let the peppers ripen to a very nice red.
		October 2		October 4		October 28 All picked for the season. There was much more than shown.		Not the best of years actually. Both tomato plants were disappointing: one because I'm not such a fan of cherry tomatoes and I didn't mean to buy them, the other because it was very late to produce much, and both because the wind blew them over several times. The round pots were a Bad Idea and they've been discarded. Both (and only the) peppers got aphids which required a daily water shower.

The bottom-watering system is under review. It makes no advantage of fertilizer in or added to the soil mix and I had blossom-end rot on the larger tomatoes. Using plain soil mix, even "enhanced", is probably not best for container tomatoes or cucumbers as it isn't rich enough, being largely peat moss. Next season I'll try a bag of manure in the mix to add some organics. Peppers did well, and I learned much later (a couple weeks ago) that stressed peppers are hotter peppers, putting more energy into capsaicin production.

Wind was a real problem, often coming right at me from the south and making me crowd everything together behind a sheet of cardboard for some protection, and curse it. Very annoying. Damn you Climate Change / Global Warming !

I sauced most of the tomatoes and dried all the peppers for crushing, which I have yet to get around to doing. It's about a month away from even thinking about starting seeds. Such is northern life.