Throughout the day in our home we listen to work crews, builders, sirens, engines, airplanes, cars honking, and leaf blowers. The wind blows hard enough to throw our door wide open and remind us that our apartment is high up in our building. At least the view through the glass door is always peaceful.

Plants are important to make your apartment feel like home.

What should you consider when choosing plants for your container garden?

Privacy

The mandevilla (pictured above) is one of our favorite climbing vines, and it’s nicer to look at than my neighbor’s satellite dish.

Fragrance & Beauty

I always grow mint for how it smells when I crumple it in my fingers, and the jasmine flowers (pictured here) are making me wish this blog could be a scratch ‘n sniff.

I love blooms, and who can resist the green of bright new leaves?

Many plants need at least partial sun to produce flowers, but they can still grow even if the conditions are less than ideal. Even our camellia could push out a few blossoms under the shaded cover of our last apartment.

Food

Everyone should grow some food in containers at least once, if only to understand just how much time, water, and care growing food takes.

We harvested golden peppers and cherry tomatoes last year and baked them on our pizzas. There were only a few, but they were special. We thought about how many plants and efforts would be required to produce a bigger harvest.

It was like Barbara Kingsolver said in Animal, Vegetable, Miracle,“Labors like this help a person appreciate why good food costs what it does. It ought to cost more.”

Herbs are a sure, easy thing. Italian parsley is one I reach for often, and the basil made enough pesto to last all winter.

In the comments Monday about designing a container garden, reader Mab mentioned how she grows lettuce in a hanging basket.

Although it’s still on my list of things to try, I think it would be neat to grow mushrooms.

Learning

As much as I would like to give advice like, “Got shade? Try ferns, begonias, hosta, and bleeding hearts…” it depends on where you live and where your plants go. You’ll always have new ones to try and some old favorites.

There is a lot to learn about gardening, but it starts with putting a seed or a small plant in a pot with some dirt, and then water it and give it some light. Everything else you learn by experimenting with your particular location and the plants you like the best.

Containers give you a greater chance to experiment. You don’t have to plant a whole row of something, you can plant just one and see if you like it. I wouldn’t be able to grow an orange tree where I live, but since it’s in a big pot I can bring it inside and keep it next to my bathtub over the winter.

Find out what zone you live in so you’re not working against nature.

Check your plants often for pests, especially the ones you might not recognize. Container gardens are often sheltered, and pests can thrive on plants that are not washed off regularly from rain.

Almost any plant can live in a container, as long as the container is big enough.

And if your plants always die after two months, try annuals. They’re supposed to die when the season is over, so they’re just right for people whose gardening interest wanes over the summer. They might even convince you to give gardening another try.

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Dressing Up Your Small Garden with Container Plants

Maybe you live in an apartment or condo like I do, and your gardening space is slim. My balcony is a little bit bigger than a twin-size bed.

Anyone can place a couple of pots next to the door, but if you want to grow a lot of plants in a small space, you need a strategy and a plan.

Even in my small space, I’ve been able to successfully grow citrus trees, flowers, shrubs, herbs, vegetables, and vines. It just takes planning and special arranging to make it all fit together, much like packing everything in the trunk of your car for a road trip, or making everything fit inside your closet.

Designing Your Garden Arrangement

This is how I’ve layered the plants on my balcony garden to take advantage of the sun, with shade plants nestled behind the bigger plants, and flower boxes hanging from the railing.

Even though we do have a lot of plants, we still want room so we can sit and spend time out there, and do fun things like city camping.

Helpful Stuff to Have

1. Pots that are bigger than you think you need. At the store they look huge, but when you get them home they’re just right. Anything can be a pot, as long as it has a drainage hole in the bottom. Don’t wind up with a lot of small pots; it’s a pain to water them frequently enough to keep them from drying out. You can combine a couple of small plants in one big pot.

2. Potting soil. Do not go and dig up some dirt from the ground by your apartment building. It won’t work. Potting soil is designed for drainage. You can also add some compost from the bin.

3. I don’t own any gardening tools. Since I mainly use potting soil, I just use a spoon for digging. One time I borrowed some clippers.

4. Watering cans. You can reuse juice or milk jugs.

5. Trellis or pole. You want to maximize the vertical space. Since we couldn’t drill hooks into the exterior wall, we positioned a tall garden pole on each side of the balcony to support a hanging basket. We attached it to the railing using stainless steel hose clamps, as pictured.

6. Hanging baskets. Suspend them from hooks or you can hang flower boxes over the railing.

7. Twine. Top-heavy plants can easily be knocked over by the wind, so we have our biggest plants tied securely to the balcony railing. Twine can be used to support vegetables and train climbing vines (grocery twist ties are good for that too).

Challenges of a Container Garden

* Water. If you don’t have access to a hose, you’ll be carrying all the water in jugs yourself, and you’ll probably be doing it every day during the summer.

* Pests. Weeds aren’t much of a problem, but you do need to be on the lookout for pests, so you can stop them before they become a problem.

* Choosing plants. It’s hard to go to the garden store and limit yourself when all of the plants and flowers are blooming and gorgeous. We’ll talk about choosing plants for your container garden next time.

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How to Design Your Small Container Garden

I thought I would try to grow some plants from seeds. I don’t have a little greenhouse, but this pretty cake stand is doing the trick. When it’s wet and rainy the lid protects the seeds and holds moisture. When it’s sunny I can take off the lid and let the seedlings soak up the sun. I have basil, tomato, and luffa seedlings growing in paper tubes. After just a few days, many of them have shoots.

Maybe I like that it combines two of my favorite things: gardening and dessert.

My first attempt was to use an egg carton, but the sections were small and the dirt kept drying out. I wouldn’t recommend it. It was on the windowsill and I kept forgetting to water it. I even lost one of the seed pods. I have no idea where it went. 

Not that we need more plants. Our balcony is small and it’s already pretty full. It’s starting to look tropical. I love it this way.

One of the garden regulars is this little baby dove. He was just an egg in my flower box a few weeks ago. The other one has flown away, but this little guy is staying for the free food.

Saturday we went to my favorite nursery in Dallas, North Haven Gardens. It was raining, but we still walked around for over an hour. I am now the happy owner of a lime tree! The new leaves smell like limes. Next to the mint, it smells like a fruit salad out there!

I’m hoping to have lots of fresh key limes this year. Looking forward to key lime pie, sorbet, and I would love to sample the key lime meltaway cookies from Smitten Kitchen. What do you make with limes?

Any garden plans this year?

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Cake Stand Greenhouse

A year ago I decided that I wanted to try composting. I loved the idea of turning discards into desirable plant food. The problem was that I lived in an apartment, and not at the farm.

The good news is that a worm compost bin can be kept small enough to have inside an apartment!

But isn’t that gross?

I know when most people think of a compost bin, they think of a big pile of rotting leaves and garbage, with flies buzzing around. Fortunately, that is not what it’s like at all. In fact, as long as you don’t overdo the food, a worm compost bin has absolutely no smell and won’t attract bugs.

We compost our fruit and vegetable scraps, tea bags, and some paper and cardboard. The compost worms help to break down the food quickly and turn it into a rich soil for our plants.  

You can buy an expensive bin, but it is so easy to make your own using two rubbermaid storage containers. (To make your own like I did, here are instructions, plus step-by-step photos.)

You do need compost worms. You can’t go out and dig up earthworms; they need to be a specific kind. I bought red compost worms online and had them shipped, since I couldn’t find anyone in the city who had them.

What I’ve Learned

The compost bin does better if you leave it alone. At first I was overly-attentive and checked the bin frequently, wondering if I was adding enough or too much food for the worms. Now the only thing I do is collect food scraps in a tupperware container in the fridge.

Once every week or two I add the food scraps to the compost bin, and then I cover the food with pieces of wet cardboard or paper egg cartons. I check to make sure the soil is damp. Sometimes I pour out the liquid that has drained to the bottom, and use it to water my plants. It all takes about ten minutes per week.

The Results

If you look inside the compost bin, on the left is finished compost, and on the right is compost in progress.

I give the finished compost to my patio plants as a top-dressing over the dirt, and then cover it with mulch. The plants respond to it so well, and I feel better knowing that my home-grown herbs haven’t been treated with a chemical fertilizer.

It’s so easy, I’ll definitely keep doing it.

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Year of Composting

I used to have a gardenia.  It died a long, slow death.  I didn’t know what the problem was, so I didn’t know how to treat it!  In hopes that it might save other plants from the sad, sad fate of my gardenia, here are a few pictures to help you identify a few plant pests.

1.  A squiggly line on a leaf might look like some kind of plant disease, but it is actually from a leaf miner.  Leaf miners are larvae of moths or flies, and they tunnel through the leaf, leaving their trail behind them.  I pluck off the leaf if I see something like this:

2.  A dark woody bump on the stem or underside of the leaf might look like a natural part of the plant, but it is actually an insect called scale.  What you see is really a hard shell over a bug that feeds on the plant sap.  Scale varies in colors and size.  Sometimes you can just scrape or flick it off the plant stem.  Other common advice is to apply rubbing alcohol to it with a cotton swab.

This plant has a bad case of scale. The leaves are sticky with a honeydew residue as a result. For this one we cut off the branches with the worst of it, scraped the remaining scale off as best we could, and washed it with soapy water.

Another type of scale:

3.  I think these are the worst.  What looks like some kind of white fungus is really mealybugs.  These white, fuzzy bugs cause a mess.  They feed on the plant sap, weakening the plant and eventually killing it.  If you notice these, you can wash them off with water or wipe them off with a cloth to get rid of them.

4.  A pest that is hard to see is spider mites.  These bugs are tiny, red dots that reside on the dry underside of leaves.  When they feed on the plants, it gives the leaves a speckled, stippled appearance. The leaves eventually become dry and yellowed. You might also notice a few strands of web around the leaves.  Spider mites can be hard to treat once they become established.  If you catch them early enough, you can wash them off with water.

Using water is a common preventive measure against pests.  The water washes off the dirt or dust that can harbor mites, and it usually takes care of the bugs and eggs that hide among the leaves.  This is especially important for house plants that don’t get rained on regularly.  I’ve had some success spraying or dunking my plants in soapy water.  On my last post about plant pests, Jessica mentioned that garlic spray seemed to help with bugs in her garden.  Any more ideas for how to take care of plant problems?

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Plant Pests: Bugs in Disguise

I noticed a bug was attracted to my basil plant.  First there was only one or two, but then there started to be more.  I wondered if they were little grasshoppers, but I didn’t see any chewed up leaves.  The leaves started to turn pale and yellow, and they folded inward instead of laying flat.  

I did a little research and realized these were leafhoppers.

Leafhoppers are sap-sucking bugs.  They are pests because they will drain the life out of your plants.  If you sit and watch them, you’ll see honeydew drops coming out of the tail end.  Every few seconds, another little drop forms.  

They come in many species.  This red-banded leafhopper landed on my spearmint.

I tried to get rid of them with a solution of soapy water, but even when I sprayed them directly, they didn’t budge.  I flicked them off, and they kept coming back.  I was stumped.  Then I decided to cover the basil with netting.  I bought tulle from the craft store, arranged it over the plant, and secured it with a rubberband around the rim of the pot.

Notice how sickly and yellow the leaves look?  This was a couple of weeks ago, when I first covered the basil with the netting.  Now that the bugs can’t get to the plant, it’s thriving again.  I gave it an extra boost of compost, and the new leaves are growing vibrant green. 

Next we’ll look at common plant pests you might not recognize.

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Plant Therapy: Leafhoppers

Composting is an amazing process. Instead of going in the trash, all of my banana peels, coffee grounds, tea bags, egg cartons, and other scraps got tossed into the compost bin. In just three months time, they were transformed into something I really wanted: rich, dark, organic fertilizer for my plants.

To enrich and speed up the composting process, I added red worms to the compost bin. This is called vermicomposting, or vermiculture. The worms help to break down the food and turn the soil so that it remains aerated. I created a tutorial with step by step photos if you want to learn how to make your own compost bin.

In the beginning, the bin with food and paper scraps looked like this:

And just three months later, it had turned into this:

Harvesting the compost:

For the final two weeks, I placed new food scraps on only one side of the bin.  Then I stopped feeding them to give them a chance to finish up all the leftover food.  Many of the worms moved toward the side of the bin that still had food and bedding.  When it was time for harvest, I scooped out the compost from the other side, and sorted through it to rescue any worms that should have stayed in the bin.  And yes, I sorted it by hand, which was really not too bad.  I had thought the worms were pretty creepy at first, but by this time I viewed them as little working worms that I had a responsibility for.  I collected only half of the compost, since the other half would have required too much sorting.  

After I had collected the compost I wanted, I had enough to cover the soil for every single one of my patio plants and herbs.  I just put the compost directly on the soil, covered it with mulch, and watered the plants.  The rest of the compost bin contents went into a bucket temporarily, and I started the bin again with fresh bedding and new food.  Then I added the worms and remaining compost back in, and covered it to start the process again.

My big question answered:  did the bin have any smell?

Surprisingly, and amazingly, no!  The bin and the compost did not have any unpleasant smell, which was my main concern.  The one time I noticed an odor, I performed some bin maintenance, and that took care of it.

What I wish I had known:

Before I went out of town for a few days, I gave the worms an extra big portion of food.  When I came back from the trip, there were fruit flies in my kitchen!  That’s when I questioned the very thing I’m sure some of you are already asking:  Am I COMPLETELY NUTS?  I moved the worm bin outside (the spring weather was mild), and stopped adding food for a while so the fruit flies wouldn’t be attracted to it.  To take extra precautions against fruit flies next time, I keep the fruit scraps in a container in the fridge, and microwave the food before adding it to the bin. 

Was it worth it:

Yes! The miracle of turning something discarded into something valuable, the acquisition of a useful skill, the small amount of time and effort, and being one step closer to my goal of having a natural, sustainable lifestyle are all reasons why I’ll keep composting.

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The Compost Results

Garlic chives

Chocolate mint.  I need to find a good recipe to use this.

Spearmint (Southern iced tea necessity)

Basil

I love the baby basil leaves with their spring green color this time of year.

Somehow this red salvia came home with me as well.

Lavender

Italian Parsley.  I use this one a lot.

I can’t wait to use these herbs to cook some frittatas. I especially love the recipe for Kuku-ye Sabsi. I’ve made it several times using whatever fresh herbs I had, and it’s unexpectedly delicious.

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Herb Parade

A worm compost bin does not have any smell, and that’s true…most of the time. When I noticed a slight odor after the first month, it was time to do a little maintenance.

I examined the bin after only one month, and I was impressed with how much compost had already formed.  The worms had done a lot. (You won’t be able to see them in this photo; they don’t like light.)

1. I stirred the contents of the bin with a stick to unpack the material and distribute air. It was better already. 
2. Even though I had been adding more bedding every now and then, I added a new thick layer of moistened, shredded corrugated cardboard. 
3. I added one more solid piece of moist cardboard over the top of the bedding, underneath the lid to discourage fruit flies,.

The worms like the bin and stay in there.  I only spend a little time every few days adding food scraps. The worms aren’t eating as much as I thought they would. It might be due to a change in food from what they were used to before, or maybe there is not a full pound of worms. It’s hard to know. At least as they multiply, they will gradually eat more.  

I learned that adding excess water to the bin was not a good idea.  I had heard from several sources that if you add water to the bin, it would drip out of the bottom as “worm tea” and would be a good fertilizer. Since then I’ve read other opinions about what worm tea really is and how it differs from leachate, which is the name for the excess liquid from the bottom of the compost bin.

When I added extra water to the bin, I created a problem. The water compacted the material so the air couldn’t flow and it caused anaerobic conditions inside the bin.  This is what made the bad odor — it’s a warning sign that conditions in the bin are unfavorable. Additionally, there is a risk with using leachate on plants since it is made from unfinished compost: it can contain pathogens harmful to humans and plants. The excess water also reduces the nutrients in the finished compost by washing them out of the bin.

Worm tea on the other hand, is made by soaking finished vermicompost in aerated water to create a liquid with helpful aerobic microorganisms. This worm tea, as well as the compost itself, provides nutrients, helps the plant resist disease, and helps the soil retain water for drought-resistance. In a few more weeks I’ll be able to harvest the finished compost for my plants.

Related post: How to Make a Worm Compost Bin

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Maintaining the Compost Bin

This is the first bloom of the season from the oleander on my patio. As soon as I wrote this post title I thought of Orlando Bloom, but back to topic. This pretty plant came home with me at the end of last summer.  It was a risk, because it meant I had to protect it all during the winter.  But when I saw a big tropical plant for $3, well, it had to be mine.  Fortunately the patio plants did manage to survive the winter, with only one regretful casualty.

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The Oleander Bloom