Organic Balcony Garden: Day One

Starting Seed Kit

Saturation

Tip #1: Go S.L.O.W or the soil will topple out! 

I have been eating organic produce for over a year now. I know it takes a lot more work than conventional farming, but I really don't know how much. So my adventure begins today. I have planted cucumber, summer squash, and chive seeds into the above container. After they pop out I will visit a local nursery with notes of other products to buy, like sand and nutrients, and whatever else I find out I will need. I am not going to use a drop of chemicals on my plants, and will hopefully have a nice yield by the end of the summer (or at least I'm hoping).

I bought the starter kit at Lowe's, but the nice guy working in the department advised me to go to a local nursery for the rest of the ingredients I will need to farm my miniature garden. He said big chain stores don't carry many organic products, but a nursery would have plenty. I'm excited to see my seedling sprout. They are currently sitting in a warm spot in the shade on the balcony, but to my demise it is a cloudy day. No sun for my seedlings today. I will be doing research on GreenAnswers.com and other green, organic sites to find out the answers to my gardening questions.

Day One Lessons
Seed starting mix is super light and takes huge amounts of water to saturate. At first I starting just dumping water on it, thinking it would soak it up like sand, but the soil toppled over onto the concrete balcony. Not a fun mess to clean up. So I begin to fill in between the trays and go very slowly over the soil itself. Next time I will soak the trays, and place water underneath them so the soil has something to stick to. This will keep the soil from spilling out so easily.

You can't see it in the photos very clearly but there is a clear plastic top for the seed starter kit. After I was done planting the seeds, I placed the top on to catch the heat and steam from the evaporating water. When they pop out I'll take more pictures for you to see this.


Please feel free to comment with any tips! Thanks, and welcome to my organic adventure!