I currently have a jungle going mad on my balcony. Wysteria, trumpet creepers, lemons, limes, apples oh my.. And the list just keeps going. This is where I must confess that I have an addiction. I'm insanely addicted to buying plants. Whether I need them or not. Whether I have the space or not. I need help.. And more so, guidance. Of course who am I kidding, I'm talking to y'all.. Permies.. You get me. Or at least you understand my love of all things plants. So I won't sound to crazy.. Anyway, it all started last year when my partner and I finally moved out of our cavelike apartment downtown, to a sprawling apartment complex right next to his work. A win win because it came with a ginormous balcony. I was in love. I immediately went out and bought seeds, and seed starting trays, and potting soil, and a water can.. Sowed my seeds, watched hem grow, and before you knew it I had baby cabbages, leeks, peppers, tomatoes, carrots. I felt like I actually accomplished something. I was wrong. First of all it was the end of July.. At the height of our dreaded Texas summers. The night time temperatures were 95* on average. Second, although my seedlings grew little did I know most of them wouldn't make it and worse, the ones that did wouldn't produce and would eventually succumb to disease and pests. I did everything wrong. ..But this is not a sob story.. Although I lost my tomatoes, and never got any fruit.. And successfully killed my cantaloupes and cucumbers, and never got any onions.. I did have tremendous success with my pineapples, lemon tree, cabbages, lettuces, jalapeños, carrots, and leeks. In the dead of winter I harvested fresh lemons right of my tree and treated myself to a tart! :) I also brought my jalapeños inside, and never took y pineapples out! Lol even to this day they are still inside. They are happy and I'm not going to disrupt that! Anyway, back to where I was.. So come spring I harvested my leeks which tasted amazing, got a few jalapeños, made a salad out of my lettuce, rolls from a cabbage, and a few stir fries from my Chinese celery and carrots. The lessons I learned were many. First, not everything wants to come inside.. And when it goes back outside it tastes some adjustment and patience.. Also the growing medium is as important as the results you will get. I got really lucky growing in a peat moss-perlite-vermiculite mix. Real lucky because all of those ingredients are void of life and inert. How in gods name I got crops is beyond me, but it also speaks volumes to the resilience of plants. I also learned the downfalls of seemingly logical self watering containers. Granted they have their place (with the right application) they can go wrong. Tomatoes for example hate 'em. Most nightshades do.. They just don't like their roots sitting in water. So here we are.. The learning curve. For best results I've come to realize you need large storage containers attached to casters filled with compost, soil, and inoculated with helpful bacteria like mycorrhizae. Ideally you would use soil from land available to you but you can also buy it online or find it in some organic fertilizers. The next thing is watering. I over did it. I'm from Michigan originally, I'm just not used to this heat and I thought I was helping. I wasn't. And you won't if you over do it to. Almost 90% of all failures in the garden come from watering. Wich brings me to my next point. I you can, harvest rain water. I you can't then its best to get a rain barrel or a few pots or buckets to fill up with tap water and allow some do the chlorine to evaporate. Otherwise hooking your hose up to our sink will kill your precious bacteria. That chlorine is vicious! Fertilizers is another. Try to avoid it. I got crazy and started buying every soil amender out there thinking I needed to make up for my original inert mix. And although I probably came up with something comparable or better then expensive store bought potting mix, in the long run its not worth it and can actually result in poorer soil fertility. Remember, permaculture tells us that nature has its own way, and we just simply need to apply it. Same is true here. Don't do what I did and feel ou have to make up from the land you don't have.. Because ultimately you don't even really need land at all. I Cason ou pictures of blueberries growing out of a bail of hay! I wouldn't suggest it, but it makes my point.. You CAN GROW ANYWHERE. :) So there ou have it.. I will update as I progress. Currently I'm giving tomatoes another chance. Bigger pot, better medium (compost/soil,) and a hardier varietal. Ill let y'all know how it goes.