I do not think you can use old brewed tea indefinitely...probably sooner or later the mineral deficiency will take over and the plant will not be looking as good as it can be. Outside - using peat and compost and aged manure - is very much preferable - because it improves the quality of soil - while salt type fertilizers do not do squat for it and probably suppress the beneficial bacteria and salt the soil if overused. Inside - it is a controlled environment, soilless mix instead of the soil, no bacteria. So in my experience - you need to use the fertilizer - in a low dose and a good one. Worm castings, old tea, fish emulsion supplements are very beneficial as a part of the program. True story - the lady tried to grow her violets in organic way - so she called somebody who gives advice in African Violet Magazine - and asked why the plant doesn't perform. The question was - what did you use - she said - I put a dead fish in the bottom of the pot expecting it to feed my violet. Duh... Actually - you can do something like that - outside, not on your windowsill. Linda - you need to try involve your talented step-son in Sinningia growing. For whatever reasons people who like cacti and other succulents - like tuberous plants. irina

I didn't realize I was being controversial, I just thought it was a pretty picture! :) I live in a neighborhood with a voluntary HOA. In reality, even if our HOA was mandatory, currently the HOA does not own the covenants to the neighborhood (two square miles developed in the 1960s-1980s), as the developer/builder has retained these rights when he developed the property. Covenants are written into your property deed, and those are what are required to be adhered to and what most people mean when they say their HOA is making them do something - often an HOA is enforcing the covenants, although I'm sure some have made up their own rules in addition to the legal covenants. In our neighborhood, when the original developer/builder passed on, the covenants and their enforcement passed to his son, who happens to also be a builder/developer and lives in the neighborhood. Since it has been decades since the development was much of a business in our neighborhood, the son (understandably) doesn't seem to care much about enforcing or not enforcing the covenants. He's got bigger fish to fry these days. When I had a major tussle last fall with a neighbor regarding a new fence we erected, the HOA wasn't much help to the complaining neighbor, and the developer didn't much care since the fence was legally built, although some interpretations of the very loosely written covenants might argue that permission to build a fence should have been granted prior to doing so. The gray area is in replacing an existing fence, and our covenants don't address that, and for all practical purposes, probably 99% of the people in my neighborhood have no idea there are even any neighborhood covenants. Had I known, of course I would have sought permission. When we embarked on a major remodel of our pool, I tracked down the developer (not easy) and got permission to be sure we were on the up and up - it turns out, there is nothing in our covenants about remodeling a pool, so I didn't even need their permission, but I got it in writing from them just in case, due to the ongoing actions of our neighbor. I personally don't really mind what people do with their yards as long as they are well-maintained. Bland patch of lawn? Fine, keep it mowed and the weeds cut down. Extensive plantings? As long as it's weeded and watered and kept cleaned up, I don't mind. At my own house, I have had some real Rube Goldberg contraptions to corral my tomatoes, and I don't think they would look good in the front yard, so they hide back behind the shed - where also I keep tomato cages, stacks of bricks and spare pots and the like. I would not want to see that in a front yard because although those things have utility to me, I can see that it looks like a messy stack of junk to everyone else. Also, when tomato plants are running wild and then getting crispy-fried in August (and I leave them like that to let the tomatoes set as much as possible), that doesn't look nice either so I wouldn't put that in the front yard. My DH didn't like looking at my veggie garden from the patio at our last house, so I purposely sited it away from the main part of the backyard in our new house, because it's almost totally utilitarian and I don't really make an effort for it to be aesthetically pleasing, just productive. Maybe some day. If DH doesn't want to look at it, I imagine the neighbors don't, either. I own properties next to some real doozies. I think especially in more modest neighborhoods where all the fences are 4 foot chain link, even the backyard should not be exempt from maintenance. We had a distant neighbor that would complain about a pecan tree in the adjacent yard dropping pecans into her yard. She got the utility company to cut down the neighbor's tree, and one of ours while they were there. I'm still mad about that! Her yard was actually 80% covered in plastic tubs (hundreds of empty yogurt containers, milk jugs, sour cream and margarine tubs), rusted metal, trash, debris and other pack-ratted stuff. One time my husband dug a short volunteer sapling out of the corner of her yard (I think it had a 4 foot taproot or something similarly insane and took hours and hours) because it was bothering her and he is a nice guy. I wanted to say "LOOK AROUND! THIS TINY TREE IS WHAT BOTHERS YOU ABOUT YOUR YARD?!" I recognize hoarding behavior when I see it (my grandma is really borderline, sometimes over the borderline), and felt sorry for this older woman. But I still didn't like seeing her stuff from my back porch or dealing with the mosquito hoards her collections garnered. My mother lives in Duncan, and doesn't have an HOA, however the city has greatly infringed upon her front yard garden. Her neighbor complained about her densely planted front yard (not veggies, all ornamentals), and the code inspector came out and required she move all plants over a certain height back a certain distance from the curb. So she had to transplant all taller items closer to the house, and make sure the stuff near the curb was something like 2 feet or shorter for a distance of some amount, maybe 6-10 feet into the yard. I believe they also had to install some sort of fence to shield the neighbor's view of their front yard, but I'm not sure about all the details of why/if that was required, I just know they had to build a taller fence close to the house that stepped down in size closer to the curb. It was quite the drama for a while, with repeated visits by code enforcement, some kind of hearing, having a nurseryman out to the house to inspect it, etc. It's all ok now, but it was a pain because all the sun-loving things were planted at the edge and moving them meant they don't thrive in the shady parts close to the house. Her front garden is a lot like going through a botanical garden or greenhouse. It's a normal size or even smallish lot, but you cannot see her house from the street - it's like a jungle, with different "rooms" and fountains and statuary and tons and tons of shade plantings under a huge tree. However, I can see why her neighbor didn't like it - it is very different and stands out in a sea of lawns and foundation shrubs (if that) like a sore thumb. The point may be moot soon since water rationing in Duncan is getting very aggressive and a lot of her shade plants will not make it. She's going to send a lot of her thirstiest plants to me to have "temporarily" if rationing gets worse.

Topsoil like the stuff you buy in bags at Home Depot? Or topsoil like stuff you dig out of the backyard? The stuff in bags appears to be mostly decomposed cow manure to me. Should work fine. Mostly they advise against using actual garden soil for containers. Your container is so large you might get away with it. Might. I like the Optisorb diatomaceous earth they sell at auto parts store for cheaper stuff to avoid compaction. Not to be confused with Fuller's clay they sell there. Requires breathing protection until it gets wet

Look at some garden photos online. They are everywhere! It's what I did before hiring a landscaper so that I had an idea of what I wanted and where I wanted it planted. You want to make sure you plug in the zone you live in and you will get better results. When choosing plants, you'll want to choose plants that do well in sunlight, if they are going to be planted in a West facing garden.