Hi, I am interested in several of your seeds. I have Blue Spice Basil, Luffa, and several types of sweet corn. Please have a look at my list and let me know if you would be interested in doing a trade. I'm having trouble with my email with this site for some reason. If I don't hear from you on email I will check back here. Thanks for looking!

If your patio is warm and sunny and traps the warmth then you may have what's called a 'microclimate' which can be different/higher than the general local one. This can be really useful for you as a grower. You can maybe start growing earlier and expect plants to carry on growing for longer - just because you have a sunny, warm, and sheltered site. If you have room on your patio for a long table, not too wide - and not too scruffy(!) - you can put your containers up at a height where you can tend them more easily. One with a metal frame would be good. It would be possible to make a small 'tent' frame to go over the containers and sit on the table top, too. If you then covered this with horticultural fleece/frost cloth - or thick, clear glasshouse type plastic - you'd protect your plants from frost and could grow on for longer. Right now, even without having that protection you could plant up fancy lettuces or a mesclun mix (posh name for lots of different leafy plants picked regularly as a mixture) for salad greens and just cover them at night with either bubble wrap or cardboard to protect from early frost. Another plant that will probably tough it out through winter with a bit of shelter - and can be cut a stalk at a time - is Swiss chard. It comes in plain white stem/green leaf - and varieties with coloured stems which lets it double as decoration. What to do with the soil after a crop has finished? Unless you had a diseased crop, you can reuse the mix. Add some slow release fertiliser which looks like little balls, mix it through - and plant something different. If you grew peas - use the mix next time to grow lettuce. If you grew lettuce - move on to carrots. Just don't feed the carrots too much. There'll likely be enough goodness left over after the lettuces have finished. (This is what the books are talking about with 'crop rotation'. It helps to keep bugs and diseases at low levels.) From time to time - add some fresh mix. Say every time you take out plants you've finished with. When you come to grow tomatoes - they are hungry plants and have big root systems - even the little cherry tomatoes. They drink heaps, too, so acquire bigger containers - four gallons is probably useful. Those dear little plants simply shoot up - and down. If there's only you, or just two people in your household - go for the 'baby' varieties unless you love lots of coleslaw, for example. There are plenty of just-for-one varieties now. You can mulch to keep the soil cooler and hold in moisture by using 'dead' things - like pebbles and big glass beads that are about half to one inch wide. Big enough for you to easily take them off the surface to wash in a bucket and reuse on the next crop. (Keeping things clean is more important with containers than in gardens. There aren't so many friendly microbes in a bag of sterile potting mix.) If your local plant supply places are selling strawberry plants now plant them up in a container of their own. Don't buy the cream just yet because they'll need to grow on for a year (unless your local conditions say otherwise) and you'll actually have to take off any young fruit before it ripens. It's worth it, though. And you can use the tent to protect your crop from strawberry-hungry birds if you cover it with some nylon netting.

I had to go to Hobby for hazmat class yesterday, on Scarsdale, just before Randolph Street, there is a big handpainted sign that says "join my community garden.." and has a phone #, that may still be a little far for you to drive though. And go to City Hall, talk to them, you might be able to start one on an empty city owned lot. It's a win-win, they don't have to mow or take care of it and you get fresh veggies!! You might talk to the apartment manager too, there is one complex I saw a report on where the residents have planted on the other side of a fence surrounding the complex, the complex owns the land and replaced annual flowers with veggies. Just google community gardens for help getting started, there is a ton of good information out there. I found a lot of helpful stuff when I was chairman at our community garden. And there are a lot of resources to help you get tools, supplies, etc. Good luck! Tally HO!

Dynamic lifter is a good fertilizer but before you do anything you need to see what the soil is like. Fertilizer won't improve soil and is a waste of money if your plants are struggling in soil that's too light or too heavy, or full of roots from competing trees. I would salvage what I could from those gardens - perennials herbs etc, weed out the rest (saving the sunflower seeds for the birds :-) ) and dig it over. What you need is good soil to grow veggies. Too sandy will need compost added to bulk it up and reduce water loss. Too old and heavy may just need breaking up, watering, compost and working over. You may even need to bring in some better soil to work into what you've got. So, I'd go for compost and soil improvement first. That might also involve adding some organic fertilizers. If you are on a budget, you should also start setting up your own compost area so you can recycle your "good" kitchen scraps and "good" weeds. I notice a number of skinny things on top of the soil that I would normally call "catkins" and suspect come from a pine tree or similar - do you have any overhanging trees like that?