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Isn’t it mad frustrating and annoying when you start your seeds and they don’t sprout? Generally seeds will take somewhere between 7-14 days to sprout, depending on the seed. Once it hits that 14 day mark with no sprouts, start getting concerned. About six-weeks ago, I started some lemon balm seeds on my balcony garden. They were planted in four parts of the container. I planned on thinning them out when they grew their true leaves so only the strongest stood. Six-weeks later and still nothing. I shouldn’t say nothing,...

People (haters) often bust my balls about how ugly my balcony garden is. They say that it’s beaten up and used 5-gallon containers and not very pretty. I’ve decided to take the challenge of the haters and decorate my self-watering containers. One of my containers was decorated by my girlfriend, Anita, who did a much better job than I could ever do. Since I’m not nearly that artistic I got some inspiration from Life on the Balcony. Her finished containers are more stylish than mine, but I’m working on it. This would...

A common excuse that people often give to not grow their own food is that they don’t know when or how much to water their plant. I was away from my balcony garden for nearly two weeks during the holidays. While on vacation, I did not once travel back home to water my garden. This wasn’t the first time that I was away for an extended period of time without having someone water the containers. That doubt and thought started to creep into my mind as well. Some of the plants I started from seed and weren’t doing too well....

I have about 10 self-watering containers on my balcony garden. In taking care of them, I’ve started to notice that the reservoir containers have been starting to stank and form algae. The reason for this might be because there is no room for the air to circulate. The air can get in through the overflow hole, but no other way to get out. What I’d recommend is to add 2-3 additional drainage holes around the reservoir container to allow the air to freely circulate. httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y3Bkaytx2zE ...

We know that you need to feed your plants and amend the soil in your container garden. Here is a quick how to on amending the soil. You’ll need the following: Container that is free of plants Cultivator Compost Water How to amend the soil: Use your cultivator to break up the soil Add some compost to the container Work the compost into the soil Water the container and let it drain through Your container is now ready for the next round of planting. httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DIv2lkvxX2A ...

Now that I’ve remembered to amend the soil in my container garden, I’m going to be running a side-by-side test of soil amendments. Here is the test that I’m going to run. I have two cucumber containers on my balcony garden. In one of them, I have amended the soil with straight compost. The other container I have watered with the cow manure tea that I brewed up. The plant that I used the cow manure tea already started out slightly smaller than the other, but I want to test and see if the manure tea help to promote better...

Here’s another creative gardening idea for those of you with limited space. It’s a self-watering container made out of a 2 liter soda bottle. This self-watering container is made out of a soda bottle, an old t-shirt (or cotton string) and some newspaper. That’s it. Hard to get much cheaper than that. I had seen the idea on Instructables a while back and have been wanting to do it since. These are just another option for you to start growing your own food besides the coconut shells, hanging soda bottle planters, cinder...

The leaves around the base of my kale and lettuce plants are yellowing around the base. I’ve used coffee grinds as a fertilizer to help with this issue. I think two of the main culprits causing the yellowing leaves could be lack of drainage for the soil or nutrients. I don’t think it’s drainage because there are plenty of drainage holes drilled at the bottom of the self-watering containers. That leaves me with lack of nutrients as the reason. Coffee grinds are a simple and cheap way to provide the plant with the nutrition...

When I started my balcony garden this year, I changed up how I was making the self-watering containers. Last year I used vinyl tile to separate the reservoir from the plant and soil. It worked well and served it’s purpose, but I learned my lesson when breaking them down. The containers froze up, and I had to wait three months until I was able to break them down. As I was breaking them down, I noticed that the weight of some of the soil and plants was causing the tile to break. This caused the plants to become to wet and not allow...

My winter container gardening ended in December, so I started to break down the self watering containers at my Grandmother’s. Once the sun went down the cold became freezing and I had to stop. When I woke up the next morning to finish breaking down the containers, they were frozen solid. All of the soil that I had been storing in the wheelbarrow was frozen as well. Unfortunately, I can’t do much until the soil defrosts, which I don’t see happening in the next few weeks. So I’ll have to wait to break down the rest. There...

With this being my last post of the year, I wanted to share with you my favorite moments from UrbanOrganicGardener. This might seem a bit self-serving, but when I first set out and started this project my goal was to get just one salad. It’s turned into a bit more than that. I’ve been able to get that salad (and many more), but I’ve also been able to connect personally with many of you and that’s really been the best part. So I’ll close out this year with some of my faves: Like I said my goal was to get one...

I set up the small plastic greenhouses last week on my fire escape and backyard vegetable gardens. When I had set them up on my fire escape, I tied some strings up at the top to support the weight of the plastic and debris that fell on it. I didn’t do the same with the ones in the backyard. So after a few days of rain and me not being there to drain off the water, the weight of the water fell onto the plants causing them to flatten out a bit. There is no excuse for that happening except my laziness. I drained the water off the plastic,...

Last month, I planted kale and lettuce in the container that I harvested my celery from. At the time, I wasn’t sure if the the kale and lettuces would grow because of the celery root. Little did I realize that after being harvested, the celery would continue to grow. So now the containers have celery growing along with lettuce and kale. I don’t think it’s the optimal growing situation because I already know that celery plants like to grow in their own containers. Much like “Ebony and Ivory” they are living...

Now that I’m over six months deep into this gardening game ‘m starting to notice a pattern in some of my plants. There is something wrong with their growth. The cauliflower has yet to head and the cucumber leaves are yellowing. Now my spinach plants are starting to show some ill effects as well. They are getting some brownish dots on their leaves. The one commonality between all of these plants is that I did not feed any of them. After I finished my initial planting with soil and compost, I never added more compost and nutrients....