Stage One: Excitement and Impulse Planting.

I did all this on July 1.

This is what my balcony looks like. I'll be changing apartments in August, which is why I'm making a mobile garden unit. I'm really bad at estimating but I'd say the balcony is 12x5ft. It gets plenty of sun in the afternoon, but this was cloudy day so you can't really tell. My new balcony should be about the same size and get twice as much sun (more south facing).

The buckets you see in the foreground are from the local garden center, Blooming Colors. They are 7 gallon grower buckets and were free. They're what plants come in when you buy them. Most places will have these cheap plastic planters, leftovers from landscaping jobs. Some places have them for free, some at a very cheap price.

I got five of these buckets. They're a bit big for what I had to grow, so I filled them bottoms with various objects. (Clockwise from top) The first bucket is for the tomatoe plant and filled with empty plastic bottles. The second is for the Thai Basil and has a cut, upside down bucket in it. The third is for the Sweet Pepper and has a plastic deli-tray cover on it. The final bucket  has nothing in the bottom because its for a potato (already in).

I didn't have enough soil (just the regular Miracle Grow) to fill all four. The three starter plants I bought at Lowe's needed to be transferred, and therefore got priority. I planted each in its own bucket, as described above. The Thai Basil and Tomato had blooms on them so I nipped them to promote root and leaf growth for now. I'm not sure if that was the best thing for the Tomato.

As of today, all three look quite healthy, and have grown since this picture. They survived the extended weekend without watering. I set the potato ontop of the soil of the pepper pot, and it has rooted. I also picked up several seed packets over the weekend. Need to get some dirt!

Coming soon: Seeding in Newspaper Planters