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Container Gardening: Give me all of the advice
One of my resolutions after visiting Japan for the second time in 2012 was to grow more plants. In Japan, lots of houses/apartments don't have yards, but people still had potted flowers/vegetables/herbs all over the place, and they were beautiful & I loved walking past them.
I bought a bunch of plants when I came back in July, but most of them have since died.
At the moment I have a fading African violet, an almost!dead but then revived ivy (which looks more like a sickly baby tree at the moment), and a robust spider plant. I got the spider plant as a cutting from one of my friend's spider plants, so I take a lot of pride in that one. It's even spawned a baby spider plant, which I hope to break off and start in its own pot once it gets warmer outside!
What I want:
--I'm not so ambitious as to plan to grow all of my own vegetables herbs, or etc. It would be neat to eat things from my own garden, but it's not a necessity. The cost of growing/maintaining plants needn't be less than the money I save by eating food I've grown.
--"Useless" plants that are pleasing to the eye are fine with me, too.
--I'll ignore advice about tomato and pepper plants for now. At the moment, I can't eat them. If it turns out that I can later in the season, I'll buy plants that's already started.
--I would like to try growing some plants from seed. But I recognize that this can be especially frustrating for beginners, so I'm okay with buying some plants that are already started, too.
--Assume that my budget is fairly liberal, but I'm not going drop like, $50 on a single plant (is that possible??). Thus far, I think all plants that I own have cost me less than $5. If I can re-use common household items like food containers, I would like to. But I don't mind buying pots if I need more than the few hand-sized ones I've got.
Internet resources I'm planning to start toying with right now:
This post about using toilet rolls as seed starters.
This PDF of a seed-starting plan so I know when to start growing shit.
Specs of my growing environment:
Inside: I have a sliding door/window that floods my apartment with light. I keep my three plants on top of a bookshelf next to the top of the door/window. The floor in front of the door/window is bare. I don't have a shelf or anything to set plants on, at the moment.
When it's not freezing, I like to set the plants outside.
Outside: North-facing balcony, measuring at dimensions forthcoming [in August, I'll be moving to a different apartment, and the balcony dimensions may increase.]
--The balcony has a guard rail. The balcony also has three wide beams in its "ceiling," supporting the floor of the balcony above me. With effort & assistance, I could probably hang some stuff from these beams.
--Birds like to nest on top of the beams. There's still an empty bird's nest there from last summer.
--The bottom of the balcony has slotted wood planks. There are gaps between each wood slot, & a balcony down below mine. So I have to be careful not to spill dirt/etc. down below! I do live next to a bike path & fields, though, so I could easily plant stuff on a ground/etc.
--I live in Wisconsin, so we're still a ways away from being able to set plants outside. This past Friday, for example, we had a blizzard.
Starting questions:
I think that at the moment, most of what I'm looking for is really basic advice, like what types of plants are fun to grow; do you use fertilizer and what kind; is it good to start plants growing inside before I set them outside; advice for frequency of watering, etc. I will take any advice!
ETA: Also desperately seeking advice on how to know when to re-pot plants.
I bought a bunch of plants when I came back in July, but most of them have since died.
At the moment I have a fading African violet, an almost!dead but then revived ivy (which looks more like a sickly baby tree at the moment), and a robust spider plant. I got the spider plant as a cutting from one of my friend's spider plants, so I take a lot of pride in that one. It's even spawned a baby spider plant, which I hope to break off and start in its own pot once it gets warmer outside!
What I want:
--I'm not so ambitious as to plan to grow all of my own vegetables herbs, or etc. It would be neat to eat things from my own garden, but it's not a necessity. The cost of growing/maintaining plants needn't be less than the money I save by eating food I've grown.
--"Useless" plants that are pleasing to the eye are fine with me, too.
--I'll ignore advice about tomato and pepper plants for now. At the moment, I can't eat them. If it turns out that I can later in the season, I'll buy plants that's already started.
--I would like to try growing some plants from seed. But I recognize that this can be especially frustrating for beginners, so I'm okay with buying some plants that are already started, too.
--Assume that my budget is fairly liberal, but I'm not going drop like, $50 on a single plant (is that possible??). Thus far, I think all plants that I own have cost me less than $5. If I can re-use common household items like food containers, I would like to. But I don't mind buying pots if I need more than the few hand-sized ones I've got.
Internet resources I'm planning to start toying with right now:
This post about using toilet rolls as seed starters.
This PDF of a seed-starting plan so I know when to start growing shit.
Specs of my growing environment:
Inside: I have a sliding door/window that floods my apartment with light. I keep my three plants on top of a bookshelf next to the top of the door/window. The floor in front of the door/window is bare. I don't have a shelf or anything to set plants on, at the moment.
When it's not freezing, I like to set the plants outside.
Outside: North-facing balcony, measuring at dimensions forthcoming [in August, I'll be moving to a different apartment, and the balcony dimensions may increase.]
--The balcony has a guard rail. The balcony also has three wide beams in its "ceiling," supporting the floor of the balcony above me. With effort & assistance, I could probably hang some stuff from these beams.
--Birds like to nest on top of the beams. There's still an empty bird's nest there from last summer.
--The bottom of the balcony has slotted wood planks. There are gaps between each wood slot, & a balcony down below mine. So I have to be careful not to spill dirt/etc. down below! I do live next to a bike path & fields, though, so I could easily plant stuff on a ground/etc.
--I live in Wisconsin, so we're still a ways away from being able to set plants outside. This past Friday, for example, we had a blizzard.
Starting questions:
I think that at the moment, most of what I'm looking for is really basic advice, like what types of plants are fun to grow; do you use fertilizer and what kind; is it good to start plants growing inside before I set them outside; advice for frequency of watering, etc. I will take any advice!
ETA: Also desperately seeking advice on how to know when to re-pot plants.
*will reread advice for hours*
This might explain some plant-death, as every time I move them inside or outside, I move all of them on the same day, done-and-done, :D
LOL I didn't know that about potting soil, although I would have done so anyway b/c I don't own any dirt, ;_; Still, it is good to know!
OMF I <3 basil, too. It's one of the plants I had last year that grew a bunch. I bought an already-started plant, and got a ton of basil out of that shit. Definitely doing one again this year!
I really want to trellis shit on my balcony. Even though I'll have to move in August, it might be worth it to grow it up until August. WILL PONDER.
I'll take pictures of the African violet when I get home, or maybe just detailed notes. Mostly, it is droopy and the flower-parts in the middle seem dead-ish.
Re: *will reread advice for hours*
More later. Gotta (pretend to do) work!