I have a big patio that I would like to start up a small garden on. Right now, I just have a compost box that I need to start over because I didn't know what I was doing to begin with.

I threw bell pepper scraps in the compost and they started sprouting. Maybe about 20+ sprouts. Should I dig them out and separate them into different pots? I don't know how big they will grow and how much room the roots need to live.


So my questions are, what kind of dirt to you use? Do you just dig up dirt from around your house? Or do you just buy special dirt?

I'm assuming that Miracle-Gro is not organic.

I'm thinking I need a long planting box because I want to grow the vegetables we eat most in my house (tomatoes, carrots, garlic, onions and bell peppers).

All and any suggestions will be must appreciated. I don't know too much about apartment gardening and composting and I want to start all over and do it right.

Thanks alot!

I live urbanly in an apartment with a very small yard. Rats would eat themselves into a traditional kept compost bin if I had one so I started keeping a bokashi bucket.
More recently I started keeping a vermiculture in addition to the bokashi. The bokashi takes over when the worms can't keep up with my kitchen scraps.

I finalize the bokashi process in my garden but they say one could do it in a large pot with some extra soil
and then, I imagine, plant in it.

The bokashi buckets I have and the vermiculture all have spigots on the bottoms so I don't have to wait for the final products to fertilize what I'm growing in the yard or in pots. I just pour off the liquid, dilute it, and use it to water my plants.

For peppers, tomatoes & warm-weather crops...my advice is to plant fresh plant starts from a nursery (or walmart) in fresh soil. Buy a couple of bags at walmart. Yes...fertilize every 2 weeks (no more than every 2 weeks) with a little of that newer organic miracle grow. The pots will have to be where they get a maximum amount of sun. Make sure to water well every other day (or every day if very dry and hot).

-Any type of square foot gardening also works well. A raised bed of 4' X 4' will grew just about enough food to feed me entirely! LOL.

-David Z. Mason

WWW.RawFoodFarm.com

Thanks for the reply.

About the peppers, I didn't intend for them to grow, but since they have sprouted, I just want to let them continue. I did read that they need to be warm and get water otherwise they may be bitter.

I'm just trying to find out if they will have enough room to grow. The pot is about 1.5-2 feet deep.

davidzanemason Wrote:
about soil
-------------------------------------------------------
> Buy a couple of bags at walmart.

Read the small print on the label. Not all bags of dirt are just dirt. Many of them are "doctored" with the same fertilizers so popular in "conventional" farming.

I had such a dickens of a time trying to find soil to grow my wheatgrass in that I decided to grow my own dirt.
Hence, my bokashi buckets and vermiculture.

If a product is organic, don't worry. They'll be bragging about it.

I found the dirt. Not a problem. A local nursery keeps it on stock.
For brand names to look for, here's the link.
[www.vinlandvalleynursery.com]

Hi Idarastar,


It is nice to see that you are interested in starting up a small garden. To use scrap from your home instead of fertilizers for composting is beneficial to you and environment. That will create Organic Gardening.
Below are some articles where you can get more information about options available for composting…


[www.organicauthority.com]