planning ahead

So today while I was out shopping I wandered over to Lowe's.  I remembered seeing seeds there before, but alas, apparently they don't carry them in the winter.  While I was there, I found a book specializing in container gardening.  I had been over to Barnes and Noble earlier (gift card from my aunt and uncle!) but didn't find a gardening book I liked.  All the container ones were for ornamental plants, and all the urban homesteading books were too focused on having an actual plot of ground and raising chickens.  (Someday I would like to raise chickens.  Obviously I never will while I'm living in my condo, but... someday!)

So, I found a book called The Vegetable Gardner's Container Bible.  It was focused on the two things I need: containers and veggies.  :)  I left the copy at Lowe's and then after I got home I ordered it from Barnes and Noble online using my gift card.  I am still considering ordering some kind of portable green house thing but I'm not sure.  I want to read my book and see what the best methods for my chosen vegetables are and go from there.

Since my quest for seeds had been futile, I googled "seed catalogs" and came up with a few websites.  I ordered a free seed catalog from parkseed.com as they seemed to have a good selection with some organic options and also not too pricey.  I would love to grow organic seed but I am not going to be uber-picky about it.  I am planning to order seeds for a lettuce mix, carrots, and beets.  (I love beets.  I could seriously compose an entire blog entry about beets.  Maybe I will someday.)  I also want to grow tomatoes but understand it's easier/better to just buy some small starter plants and go from there.

I also found this really interesting article about growing potatoes in a barrel.  So: now that I've selected the veggies I want to start off with, I will start searching for containers.  A barrel would be awesome but I won't be heartbroken if I don't find one.  In the meantime, I need to start getting my stuff together to grow lettuce, carrots, beets, and however I'll do the tomatoes.  Going to look around in the next few weeks to see what I can find.

I took some "before" photos of my balcony this morning.

Here's hoping by this summer it'll be all green!