The "Garden"

Still reading? Good, because now we get to the fun stuff. I've been wanting to grow some vegetables for a few years now. My parents have always had a garden, so when I moved out on my own it was tough not having my own land to dig in. But one of my friends mentioned that she successfully grew some veggies in containers, so I'm going to give it a try. Yesterday I spent some time researching what varieties do well in containers, and I ordered some seeds from The Natural Gardening Company. I chose that e-tailer mainly because they had most of the varieties I was looking for, but also because their site was among the more visually appealing. I admit it, I'm a html snob.

Here's what I ordered:

• Blue Lake pole bean
• Diva cucumber (I was in a spelling bee when I was in 3rd or 4th grade. The word that I missed was cucumber, of all things.)
• Fairy Tale eggplant, which I got mainly because it's a miniature eggplant, which is better for container growing, but also because it's so damn pretty.
• Tom Thumb lettuce
• Carmen pepper
• Red Grape tomato
• Juliet tomato
• Genovese basil

Yes, that seems like a lot. Really, though, I'll probably only keep one plant of each variety, except for the lettuce and the basil, and I may put the basil in the tomato containers, since my parents have done well growing basil right underneath tomatoes. The one I'm most worried about is the beans. I have no idea how many plants I'll need to have a reasonable supply of beans. I'm not a huge green bean eater, but that's mainly because I hate canned or frozen beans. But, I'll figure that out later--I don't even have the seeds yet!

I also ordered a 72-cell seed starter. I'll have to start some of the seeds very soon in order to have sizable seedlings by May. I'm not sure yet where I'm going to set that up. I think the garage will be too cold for a while. Maybe I can set up something in my walk-in closet.

Here's what I still need to get before I can start the seeds:

• grow light
• organic seed-starter mix
• organic compost
• heat mat???
• timer for grow light
• organic fertilizer