Before someone takes that wrong, I should probably explain. I'm talking about the spring growing season and how very easy it is to start out with small plans which grow bigger and bigger as the enthusiasm grows. Sorry if you were looking for something else lol.
I am in the middle of just such a season. I started out with the relatively modest plans (for me anyway) of putting bush beans in my long planters behind my petunias and growing tomatos in my topsy turvys.
This is a picture of my petunias from last year, and yes, those are solar lights also. They light my balcony very nicely until the wee hours with the amount of light they get, they don't attract bugs, and I don't have to run wires all over the place to have light in that area. I have 2 of these on a 25' balcony, and it's a good thing :)
But I digress. From 3 petunias and 3 bush beans, plus 2 solar lights, per planter and 3 topsy turvy's planted with tomatos. Those were my big plans for the season, besides putting my houseplants out. *sigh* Some years I'm so niave.....
I live in an apartment complex with 185 units, and it is laid out very nicely. There has been talk of putting a community garden in for years, and this year it is happening. I've been involved in a community garden before, City Sprouts in Omaha. They're an urban garden built on 3 empty lot with the idea of inviting the community to learn and participate in growing their own food rather than being so dependent on what's available and affordable in the grocery store. I lived a block away from the initial site when they were forming up years ago, and being an overgrown farm kid, would often wander down to get my hands dirty for a few hours, towing my kids along with me. They learned a lot, and I enjoyed the fellowship with other people gardening even though I had 4 raised beds myself as well. I also worked at Mulhall's Nursery for a season, learning more along the way, especially about container gardening, which was something I wasn't very familiar with until that time.
Our apartment garden is scheduled to be planted the last weekend in May, which is a little late in the growing season for us. I suppose I'm not too surprised, as the two event coordinators in charge of the project have no gardening experience. I give them a lot of credit for being willing to take on this challenge, but they are going to get a little unexpected help. Since I bought a full packet of bush bean seeds, and will only use at most 6 plants personally, I've been putting the rest in starters so they already have some growth by the time the garden is planted. I'm using yogurt containers that I use a knife to cut an X in the bottom of, fill it with older potting soil from pots I've had (it's nutrient poor at this point, but still lighter than the clay soil we naturally have, and with some supplimental light fertilizing, will do nicely for giving these plants a good head start). Needless to say, I have lost one entire counter in my galley kitchen, and my outdoor table in the balcony will soon be covered in yogurt containers filled with beans. Oh, and peppers, since I decided I want to grow a couple bell peppers too while I was looking at seeds, and I can grow those in a pot. I'll still start my leftovers and donate them to the community garden though, or if they don't want them, there's enough neighbors with patio gardens that I'm sure I'll be able to find good homes for all of them. (That also means you'll be seeing recipes for what I do with this produce later, when I start making them lol). I also got petunia seeds, but I'm sure I'll have too many of those, so they'll also all get started and given away, and I got a packet of tomato seeds, which I'll also have the same issue with. The reason I'll start all the seeds and give them away is a lot of seeds have a great germination (sprouting) rate the year the packets come out, but if you save them for the next year, the rate goes down, sometimes drastically, and I'd rather get the most of the potential out of the seeds, which means planting them all this year. All the seeds I bought cost me less than $5, and with the savings of not buying these things at the store even with the few plants I'll keep for myself will more than make up for the initial cost of the seeds and cover all the ones I'll be giving away (except for the petunias, which I grow simply because they're pretty and local pollinator bugs and hummingbirds like them, and they will withstand the heat and very dry weather a Nebraska summer has).
I will probably end up going out and looking at seeds again before long, just to see if I've missed anything. And I will probably bring more home, some to keep and some to share. I may lose more than one counter in my kitchen, because I plant them and keep them there so I can keep an eye on them until there's a good sprout, which is when they get moved out to the balcony, only being moved in if it gets too cold, until it's time for them to go to their new homes.
This is a great time for a seduction, and I love being seduced like this! Enjoy :)
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