Last summer I grew some herbs on a ladder outside my kitchen, and they didn’t die!  The success of this I cannot put into words.  I do not have a green thumb and have basically killed every indoor plant I have ever owned.  To be able to grow a couple of herbs outside, in the elements and keep them alive, I felt like I won something.

This year I wanted to take the challenge a little further and see if I could grow a few vegetables.  I have a small yard and was thinking I could easily plant some vegetables along the side of the house.  I had no idea where to start and then I saw that Figaro’s Garden was offering a Small Space Gardening Workshop for free and a $7 cost of materials if you wanted to plant some seeds.  I figured this was my chance to learn about small space gardening.

Andrea from Heavy Petal hosted the workshop and was very informative, she definitely offered pros and cons to various small space gardening techniques.

Here’s what I took away CONTAINERS.  Forget digging up the yard, get some containers of various sizes and you have a garden.

Pros to Container Gardening:

* Build a garden anywhere

* Weeds and pests are easier to control

* Compaction (walking on  an in ground garden) is reduced

* You can move containers (either in the yard or if you move in the future)

* Easier to reuse the soil year after year, which adds up to savings

We will get to the planting part and containers in another blog post, when the seeds are ready to plant.  For now I will go over how to plant your seeds.

My first suggestion!  A SEED PARTY!  You are not going to use all the seeds in a packet, so if you are able to get 5 or so friends together and each person bring 1 or 2 packets of seeds you’ll each have a variety at a fraction of the cost.

Planting Seeds

You will need the following:

Containers (reuse containers, buy small plastic or composted ones at the store)

Seed Starting Soil (for us small space dwellers this is easier than creating your own soil mixture)

Plant Tags (Popsicle sticks, stick with a paper, something to label your seeds)

Seeds (Herbs, Flowers, Tomatoes, Eggplants, and Beans are great to start now and will be ready for planting in June)

Seed Planting Instructions:

1) Fill each container almost to the top, leave a small 1/4 space so you are able to water easily.

2) Water soil so it is moist

3) Using your finger create a small indent in opposite corners

4) Drop one seed in each hole (you can put 2 to 4 seeds per container – Andrea recommended 2)

5) Cover each seed with soil

6) Place on a windowsill with bright light, preferably south-facing.  If you don’t have enough light you can always buy a growing light.

7) If you are able to cover the containers with a plastic dome or even a plastic bag until the seeds germinate, this will help the process.

I can’t wait to see the seeds start to grow.

Part two of this post will be purchasing containers, transferring the plants and setting up the garden!

 

Has anyone had success with seeds or container gardening if so I would love to hear your stories!

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