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 Monica, I have more seeds than I will ever plant! Check my list and choose anything you would like. Then send me an email and I will let you know where to send a sasbe. Look forward to hearing from you. Ibartoo

Hi Khristle! It sounds like things were going well if your pile was heating up and you could not recognize the stuff you had put in there. I gather from your post that you know UCGs work as a green. How moist is the stuff you have in there with the shredded newspaper? Perhaps it needs more moisture after adding all that paper. Was the paper and coffee added to the previous stuff that had heated up before? Have you tried going a few days between spinning the tumbler? I have never used a tumbler but maybe you could try waiting a couple days between spins. If liquid comes off your stuff, I think that would be called a "leach" type fluid. It might contain coffee, veggie and fruit juices if you have just added wet greens. For "compost tea" I believe you use actual finished compost with it's beneficial micro-organisms and add some to (dechlorinated) water and then aerate the solution with device such as an aquarium pump or other air pump or circulator to keep the stuff from going anaerobic. I have never made tea but there are many discussion on this to be found - I am thinking of trying this someday when I have time for a new project! Personally I have not had success scoring spoiled produce from stores "sorry miss, we are not allowed to give this stuff away...", but some of my friends save kitchen scraps in an ice cream bucket and give to me since they are not composting their own stuff. (I have no idea why they have not caught the composting bug, but I still love 'em!) Good luck! It sounds like you have fun with that tumbler and will have some good stuff out of it one day! Rachel

Summer savory, I make my own poultry seasoning now instead of the pre-mixed. I season to taste, know I use that and sage (quite a lot of that), can't remember what else, parsley, a little thyme, a little majoram if I have it, onion, celery (including leaves), bread cubes, chicken broth w/melted real butter, water to get it the right dampness, salt, pepper, no rosemary, no garlic, sometimes a little Lawry's seasoned salt. I don't use recipes for a lot of things any more, just dump. Here are lots of ideas for it, hope the link works. If it doesn't go to groups.google.com, click on advanced search, put rec.food.recipes in the "group at this location" put summer savory in the exact phrase box, hit the google search button. The regular google search engine might come up with some more if you put "summer savory" in quotes and search (or just savory). Here is a link that might be useful: recipes using summer savory