Berries, goldfish, and returning from travels - balcony surprises

When you come back from three months of travel, how do you expect your balcony garden to look?
Well, I returned last week, and this is what I found:

Boysenberries. They were probably Blossoming while I explored fairytale Copenhagen, setting fruit as I nestled into my friends apartment in Venice, and ripening as I gave my Permaculture seminars in Japan.

Some aren't sweet enough, the sweet ones aren't tart enough, but mixed into my morning porridge, they give it a wonderful fragrance, and you don't notice the seeds. Most importantly, they make things pink. Cloves, cinnamon, brown sugar and coconut milk make things perfect.


Thank-you Natsumi, thank you Carol, thank you Lon. You are talented Balcony gardeners.

But its my theory that the balcony guard-fish gets much of the credit for keeping things alive.

Of course, he does his thing with admirable ferociousness, blitzing mosquitos, keeping the currents nicely stirred up in the squeezy-bucket pond that is his universe. But most importantly, his presence keeps the humans coming up to the balcony on a daily basis. Its easy to neglect plants, but not so easy to let a pretty fish starve. While they happen to be there, the plants get water dished out to them from the pond, and so long as they top it up before declaring the day's work done, the whole system kind of takes care of itself.

Permaculture systems plus Concientious Japanese. Its a recepie for surprising but inevitable success.