Plant ALL THE THINGS!

My previous apartment had no balcony and no yard access. Technically I was supposed to be able to use the yard, but I was never given a key. Oh well. Our current apartment, however, has a nice little 5x15 balcony outside the living room, facing east. So not the best sunlight, but good enough that we were able to grow a tomato and a pepper plant on it last year. This year, we're doing it again! But getting a bit more ambitious. Palmer picked out a jalapeno pepper, so we're going to try our hand at starting a plant from seed. Once it warms up some more, we'll buy a tomato seedling, and we're also planning to do a bunch of herbs. The basil went wild last year, so we'll likely do that again - I just need to be more on top of plucking it regularly. The rosemary and chives wintered over, and we're planning to add on thyme and parsley, and maybe a few other herbs. Basically, I want a lush little container garden for our balcony, and dammit, that's what we're going to have.

Also worms. I've convinced Palmer to try composting, and apparently vermicomposting is the easiest and least smelly option for an apartment. So over the next few days I'm going to buy a container and drill holes in it, gather up newspaper to shred, and see about getting my hands on some red wrigglers. And then compost! We might have to keep the bin inside the apartment, since they're not supposed to go in direct sunlight. But everything I've read says that worm composting bins don't really smell at all, and since it'll have a lid, its not like the cats will be able to get at them. Now I just need to figure out where to buy worms from. I want to start small, like a half pound or less, because I don't want to risk starving the worms if we don't generate a ton of food scraps. I guess we'll figure it out.

But I am excite!