First sprouts for my balcony garden!
2mon 9d ago by slrpnk.net/u/foxymochakitten in balconygardening@slrpnk.net from slrpnk.net
Very excited to try balcony gardening for the first time! Or, well, any gardening at all for the first time! Pictured here is one basil plant, one tomato plant, and then a lavender that I didn't expect to grow because the seeds expired five years ago XD
I've been told that starting from seed without grow lights is a fool's mission but I accidentally bought the seeds anyway (they were in my online cart when I bought something else oooops) so I'm going on a fool's mission! I'm excited to see how they turn out, including if they turn out leggy, floppy, and useless! I have a back-up plan of just buying some plants from Trader Joe's if I need to C:
I also have some bell peppers and catnip that should sprout any day now, and I found a bag of potatoes in the back of my cabinet that have all sprouted so I'll be doing grocery store potatoes too, I guess XD I'm not too concerned about diseases since this is all container based.
While I wait for the weather to warm up, I'm researching kitchen sink attachments so I can hopefully run a hose through my apartment to the balcony. My chronic illness makes things difficult (things such as hauling a watering can back and forth) and my budget is extremely small but I'm determined to give it an honest go.
If anyone has any suggestions, throw 'em at me! I am open to all ideas, failures, and adventures. Cheers!
put them where the rain hits them, so you need to water less. put a bucket besides so you catch additional rain and don't need to haul water.
but.,. aphids will probably strike. ladybugs help tho.
Always expect aphids. And spider mites. Little fuckers.
We fight off aphids with neem oil, right? And spider mites with rubbing alcohol? Or should I go straight for the flamethrower--
I haven't found neem oil to be helpful.
Do you have a recommendation for an alternative?
I sure have not and look into it every single year. I guess an alcohol spray seems to work best after an infestation has already taken hold.
I've bought a couple of different allegedly green pesticides this year to try. We'll see.
Those are great ideas hell yeah!! Bucket on the roof let's goooo
They are looking leggy, which...is solvable with a grow light. They're struggling to reach for the light. That doesn't necessarily mean they won't work out without a light.
That makes sense! No harm in giving it a go I suppose. Once they're a little bigger I plan to plant a fan in front of them to blow them around so they hopefully build up some strength to combat the legginess
I have found that to be helpful. Make sure you don't have the fan too strong on them. Sometimes you will be surprised by the sad little seedlings that turn out to be strong later.
This is pretty awesome! Did you make those little brown containers yourself?
Yeah!! I collected a bunch of toilet paper tubes for the purpose, cut them in half and folded up the bottoms. Allegedly you can just open the bottom and plant them right in the dirt but we'll see if that works or not XD Ngl it was really satisfying to make them. And I just wrote the names of each plant right on the container
Neat! I've seen the tp roll trick mentioned elsewhere.
And did you fill them w/ off-the-shelf seed starting mix or something else?
Honestly I just used some container soil since that's what they'll be planted in. I have a chronic illness + my funds are very low so my challenge for myself is to spend as little as possible while also investing as little energy as possible so that it stays sustainable for me. We'll see how that works out but so far the seedlings seem happy!
Sweet, good luck and thanks for sharing!