Apartment Farming: Getting Started

So this whole thing started with me moving from Texas to Michigan for grad school. If you didn't know it snows here and there isn't nearly as much sunshine. With my liking of the outdoors, cooking, and just being friendly of the plants I decided it was time to green up the apartment. In doing so I thought why not knock out two birds with one stone. I'd grow some vegetable plants. The second provoker of this experiment was a lighting project I conducted my first semester here.

So to start this endeavor I bought some seeds (cilantro, sweet basil, and cherry tomatoes), soil, and pots. Start with the basics then we can get into the crazy stuff a little later (hydroponics, and LED's)

Here is the getup, some pretty pots (have to keep the apartment looking friendly) , seeds and trays for the water that drains through. We just can't have a mess, I track enough snow into the entry as it is. Not pictured are the seeds for the peppers. I kept some seeds from a heirloom pepper from the fall's farmers market. Along with some seeds from a green pepper I used for dinner tonight.

This is me trying to be clever. I didn't see the need for the potting soil to be all the way down into the bottom of the pot. Just one more reason for it to fall out the drain hole. Rocks I found were two things. Scarce since the ground is covered in a foot of snow, and second if you buy them, expensive. So with the reuse of a couple yogurt cups I cut some drainage slots and flipped them upside down to fill some space in the pot. So far so good. (I did make it about half this size for the tomato pot, thinking the roots are going to need more space and nutrients.)

The rest is pretty self expanitory. Insert cup, add soil, plant seeds, and let grow.

I did try for some clever points here. The seeds for the cherry tomatoes I figure are going to need some type of support once they get going. In preparing for this I used an old wire hanger and cardboard tube to make a vertical tie back to support the vine once it starts producing fruit.

And the conclusion, you just can't grow a garden and not know what is where. In a budget attempt at something cleverly descent looking I made some labels on the computer. Printed them out and affixed them to colored toothpicks with scotch tape. Hopefully this will last, it's cheap and not limited to text.