Front garden introduction

I say garden, but it's actually just the front steps with some containers. If it were feasible this is where I'd grow almost everything, as it's south-facing and gets a lot of sunlight, unlike the back yard. As it is I'm planning to have some cherry tomatoes, cucumbers, and eggplant here, as well as herbs since it's much easier to get to then the beds in back.

Right now there's a lot of little plants that will be set out back, but the large pot at the bottom has some cosmos and poppies planted and will stay put. Then going up there's the fig tree, some dill seedlings, strawberries, rue, more seedlings, and parsley that I've actually had growing in the window since January.

Close up of strawberries and the rue.

The rue is also an indoor window plant, which I picked up last year at the Union Square farmer's market. I've never grown it before and don't cook with it but I love the leaves and the weird scent. According to the internets dried rue is good for repelling insects, so maybe I'll harvest some for that. I'd actually like to get seeds and grow some more since a couple of the plants out back were the only non-shrubs to survive winter (plus the dog and other wildlife), but I suspect they'll need to be mail ordered since it's not very popular.

Closer to the top are scallions, dwarf sugar snap peas, and lettuce with a couple of baby herbs (rosemary and sage).

I've got a couple of 16" pots to bring out front, whenever I get it together to pick up some potting soil to fill them, and plans for two planters. We'll see how much actually gets done.

Indoor plant starting

This year I finally went out and bought a fluorescent light to start seedlings with. It's just the cheapest hardware store model and only has cool bulbs, which isn't ideal but it's what was available. Below is the set-up right now.

On the left is my desk and on the right my bookshelf; the light is wider than the shelf so it's hung over the bottom shelf and then extends under the desk whe it hangs from a hook I added. I turn it on when I wake up in the morning and off an hour or two before I go to bed.

Because the fluorescent light doesn't get hot it doesn't matter if the plants actually touch the bulb, which helps when you have seedlings of wildly different heights. All of the trays and such are left over from former roommates or buying starts at the farmer's market, with whatever potting soil I had on hand. So far it's definitely working better than putting the plants in the window, even though the window I use is south-facing with shelves directly in it for plants.