Spring is coming! If you are lucky enough to have a balcony, you will have to take possession of this outdoor space! When to clean your balcony? How to clean your balcony railing, floor, and balcony furniture? How to prepare your spring plantations and your vegetable garden on the balcony? Here is a program that will cheer you up to properly prepare your favorite outdoor corner.
It’s time to take a walk on this balcony neglected all winter:
- Sweep the floor. If small mushrooms have appeared, draw a mixture of water + baking soda or black soap and scrub with a brush.
- Dust off the railings. You can remove any traces of rust with a small wire brush.
- If moss has settled on the walls of your terracotta pots, the same mixture of water + baking soda or black soap will work wonders.
- Check all the fasteners of your planters and suspensions, sometimes the weather weakens them.
- Remove the wintering veils installed at the end of autumn as soon as the temperatures allow it (be careful, in the coldest regions, it will often be necessary to wait until May).
- As for your pots and planters that do not contain plants, renew half of the soil in order to be able to plant new plants more efficiently.
- Finally, check the condition of your tools that have been left outside all winter.
Preparing the balcony vegetable garden
Even if the temperatures seem to be getting warmer, it is better to remain cautious, as cold snaps remain quite possible. It is therefore too early to set up your balcony vegetable garden as a whole.
As of March, however, you can:
- Prepare your containers, clean them if necessary, and install trays for your next plantings.
- Directly sow in pots certain seeds of less chilly vegetables such as radishes or certain aromatic seeds such as parsley.
- Sow the seeds of peppers, eggplants, and tomatoes indoors… until you can plant them on your balcony when the time comes.
Clean balcony furniture
Garden furniture must be cleaned before spring, regardless of the material of the furniture. If you have teak garden furniture, make way for a simple cleaning that consists of mixing warm water and a little Marseille soap. Ditto for PVC garden furniture which has the advantage of being easy to clean with a simple wipe with a damp sponge first dipped in a bucket of soapy water. To revive a nice rattan garden furniture, you can mix four tablespoons of sodium bicarbonate with warm water, then clean the rattan in question with a sponge. Finally, to effectively clean outdoor mattresses and cushions, you can dip the brush in a bucket of warm water in which you have diluted a coffee cup of soda crystals. Rub gently then rinse with clear water before drying everything in the open air. To avoid stains such as mold, take advantage of this cleaning to protect your outdoor fabrics with a textile waterproofing agent in order to have a clean outdoor area for the summer season.
