apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

"How Does Your Garden Grow?"

It doesn't. I live in an apartment which gets no sun and I have no indoor gardening kung fu skills.

:(

My little box of lettuce is coming along quite nicely. But this morning a squirrel was rooting through it! BAHH! Anyone have tips to keep the lettuce growing and squirrel-free?

We spent the weekend gardening - I've got 3 containers of annuals, a little box of herbs, and two perennial gardens done. We're not really "urban" per se, but maybe I'll send some pics in anyhow!

we're growing kiwi. :-) It does not need as much water as the garden -we had flowers die last year because we could not water them for a couple of days. (no shade open East side backyard with terrible soil full or roots; and there's a lot of birds and squirrels, cats, possums and raccoons).

Does anyone know how to start growing mushrooms? Can I buy spores somewhere? We have a decaying stump which we currently camouflage as a flower stand, but it would be perfect for growing mushrooms...

A friend of ours had an indoor shiitake kit from Vermont Mushrooms. They sell plugs for outdoor cultivation too - you'll have to keep us updated if you try it!

I was bummed to come back to my apartment on Monday after having been away for a day to discover that a couple of my plants were gone. (My plants are out on a sunny, communal balcony). Part of me wants to believe that it was a nasty bit of weather or a bird, but there wasn't any debris anywhere. One of the plants looks like it was clipped and the other looks likes it was dug up. The third is just totally gone. It makes me really sad. I'm going to try to replant with cloches, which should help if the culprit was a critter.

Oh, that is sad, sarahbest! I hope you do find it was a critter--little thieves are easier to foil than big ones.

My "garden" is a self-watering window box full of basil in my bedroom window. My balcony doesn't get much light and my sewing room window is usually full of cats, so the bedroom window is my only available real estate for the basil that I freeze and use all winter in casseroles, sauces, and pesto. The box has a unique feature: its security system. One of my cats is a serious, down-to-the-dirt plant eater who especially loves basil, so I've put several bamboo stakes in the window box; I drape tulle fabric (the netting stuff they use under some ballet skirts) over the stakes, tuck the ends under the box, and my hungry cat can't get to it, but the basil still gets the sun. Before you ask, yes, I do have a pot of grass for the cats, but the plant-eater prefers basil!

it doesn't. without a stout high deer fence or electric coral, you're wasting your time

I have a container garden growing on the balcony of my apartment that has had some great success. I've got basil, garlic chives, flat leaf parsley, Roma tomatoes, jalapenos, and sugar snap peas. All but the basil is doing quite well and I hope to have veggies and herbs by July if I can keep it up. I noticed flowers starting to bud on the peas so I think that just might happen!

my photo is on it's way to you now... hope i'm not too late to play along. :)