Welcome to Gaia! ::

Well, for the past few years I've been moving around too much during the growing season. Except this past summer, when I planted a garden in my father's yard... and then he forgot to tell the lawn service people he hired and they mowed right over it gonk
Anway. Now that I'm nicely settled into my own apartment, I figured I'd give this another go. Sadly the apartment building only has a tiny patch of ground out back, which another person in the building is using (at least all the bits that aren't in constant shade!). LUCKILY, I have a south-facing porch. Gets about 6 hours of direct sunlight and the rest of the day it's tree-filtered sunlight.

I've got a bunch of herbs on the railing already (need to get bigger pots for them soon 3nodding ) But I'm wondering what else does well in containers? Smallish containers, they've got to be able to sit on the porch railing or they'll barely get any sun sweatdrop

Oooooh STRAWBERRIES AWESOME. I will totally try to get some of those.
I've got a farm share at a local CSA farm this season, so I suspect I will have greens coming out my a** and ears all summer, but you have to pay extra for a "fruit share" which is actually a combination of fruit and PAIN IN THE a** TO HARVEST vegetables (cherry tomatoes, green beans, sugar snap peas...) So I guess strawberries and cherry tomatoes would be good plants to have on my porch smile
Do you think I can use the posts on the porch (the ones that hold up the balcony of my upstairs neighbors) as sort of trellises?

Wheeeee my plants are GROWING xd

The strawberry plants are still small but already flowering.
Tomato plant is growing a bit, still not big enough to need support
And aallllll my herbs are growing at a nice pace. The peppermint is growing at a truly insane pace, I can see why everyone says to grow it in a pot and not the ground eek

I'll see if I can get my girlfriend's camera to work. Or if my cellphone can take decent pictures. 4laugh


Gotta watch the peppermint. I think he's trying to colonize the parsley pot. ninja

Thanks for sharing! I'm going to be moving to the city soon (for school) and I'm really stoked about growing my own foods. I just hope we're able to get something with a decent porch.

Even better would be a back yard were I can hang clothes to dry. I miss the smell of air dried, sun dried clothing.

Get one of the square ones - that way personables can be in the inside and towels & stuff can be on the outside.

Yellowing on the edges of leaves is a good indication of too much water. Wilting might be too much water too (or not enough, depending). The best (and cheapest) way to know is to stick your finger in the soil knuckle deep and feel if the soil is wet below the surface. If it is, back off on your watering. If it is very wet, lay out some newspaper and slide the plant out of the pot onto the newspaper to let it dry out. If it is over-watering, the plant may look worse before better since excess water can damage the microscopic roots of a plant. Hope this helps!

Also, if you grow tomatoes in pots, you will need to supplement the potting soil with calcium. I use about a tablespoon of gypsum to a gallon of soil, and I use three-five gallon pots. Some people crush up egg shells and add them to the soil, but I never have that many egg shells when it's tomato planting time. I'll see if I can get some pics up, there huge!

Aah, we had a bit of a heat wave last week here, so that might be it. The yellowing is only on one of the plants, so i'm not too worried.