Thank you PV for your post all all great tips:) My balcony is facing north and there is a bit of sunlight in the front of in usually by noon. Then its all shade for the rest of the day...Lemon trees seem to be doing fine so this will be an experiment with herbs. I didn't know about carrots that they will not grow without full sunlight (too bad was excited for some sweet young carrots) but i will look into lettuce! Your basil is amazing. what kind of basil do you have? i bought seeds of sweet basil but saw some other kinds and had a little bit dilemma of which one to choose so went with sweet one. I like growing from seeds - more fun to watch and more satisfaction than buying a grown plant. Does growing broccoli or cauliflower require a big container? I might be interested in that but I don't have room for a big container on my balcony. Fortunately I am the only person who will be using herbs for cooking and veggies (if that works out for me) so I don't need a lot. I guess just a bit of everything that I like. I still want to get some dill seeds. I bought 2 new containers - one smaller one medium and will have to figure out what to plant there.... Thanks for tips on plants and flowers! i am interested more in once that will live longer than one season... and that will add some color to the balcony. unfortunately its more of a concrete balcony and I don''t have any railings to use for attaching a windowbox. SO I am left with whatever pots/containers I put on the floor i guess. I am excited to expand flowers/plants on my patio. It's probably not he best time of the year for it -fall - but in I live in San Diego so another 2 months should still be quite warm before it's around 45-50 degrees in the winter. I also attached below pictures of how the balcony looks like and other ones in the building (it wasn't a sunny day so actually it looks a bit more gray than usually): Magda

Hi There! I am always happy to see someone trading veggie seeds! Please e-mail me at Robin282mt@verizon.net I have made 2 lists below. I would say it is not final, ad will probably lower my wants, but as a beginning... I have more than is listed on my trade page too. I am interested the following from your trade list: VEGETABLES Colorful Flour Corn Amaranth--Plainsman Beans---Provider Principessa D'Olanda Royalty prple pod bush Carrot St. Valery Touchon Broccoli Romanesco Italia Cauliflower-Maceratta Celeriac (Root Celery) Celery--Golden Pascal Cucumber Wisconsin SMR58 (pickling) Fucus Armenian Bitter Chinese Long White Fennel Everest Montebianco Rouge D'Hiver Glorie de L'Exposition Melon Charantais Honey Rock Canteloupe Sugar Baby Peppers Baladi Hot Mix Hot long red Thai Dragon Red Mini Bell Purple Beauty Golden Cal Wonder Early Cal Wonder Purple/Yellow Pepper Radish Scarlet Turnip White Tip Giant Noble Concenta Hybrid Butternut Black Futsu Table Queen Bush Tomato Yellow Plum Olenas Ukranian Black Prince Delicious Amish Paste The Dutchman Eva Purple Ball White Queen Black Krim Marmande Snow White Cherry Black Plum Polish Lingusta Baladi DePinto Plum Gilbertie Plum Cow's Tit Plum Evergreen San Marzano Nano Cherokee Chocolate Long Keeper Golden Jubilee Ferris Wheel Beefsteak Patio Orange Lime Green Salad I WANT THE FOLLOWING Tomato --heirloom varieties, no hybrids I have lots of these**will make a list for you meanwhile Dill lovage Marjoram Sage Stevia need to check Thyme Sugar snap type pea Pod Pea Lettuce--various kinds and mixes have lots of these, and reds too Chinese Cabbage Carrots--unusual colors Radish unusual varieties Leek FLOWERS Morning Glory Giant Zinnia Sunflowers Delphinium Beneficials Mix OTHER Husk Cherry 2 kinds any other edible fruiting plant--Craberries, and more Here is a link that might be useful: My Trade Page

Hello littleminnie, Im intersted in trading Anchusa Dropmore some me 2011 baptisia australis some me 2011 Chinese Wisteria 50 local 2012 Only need a handfull of wisteria and baptisia. Let me know if i have anything you need. Thanks, Billy http://members.gardenweb.com/members/exch/youngent

Thank you for all of the wonderful and generous replies! For some reason, not all of the replies came to my email, so I apologize for the delay in responding to some of you. I emailed everyone back! Yes, we plan to be seed savers, so we can trade and plant more next year, or donate to other people looking to start gardening... or maybe to a community garden. I keep coming back to this site and finding there's always something new that I didn't see before (or didn't have time to check out). I hope to learn all kinds of things here and check out lots of forums and pick up tips and hints as we go. Maybe in the future, in turn we can mentor someone else. We're also experimenting with multiple gardening techniques including indoor container gardening, aquaponics (over the fish tank), and of course, outdoor gardening too... It's all a lot of fun, and the kids are having a blast (and it's not even warm enough to plant outside yet)!