Today I thought I would share with you my attempt at apartment gardening. We have a VERY small apartment with a garage so first I had to figure out what items I needed the most. I decided that tomatoes, strawberries (Corky's favorite), and herbs are what I use the most.

I started with the herb garden. I chose basil, parsley, arugula, and dill (for my homemade pickles and ranch dressing, which I will post about later). I planted them in a window box using organic soil. In the pictures you can see where I put the broken up peat pot (peat pots are biodegradable earth friendly flower pots that my herbs came in) in the planter along with everything else.

The finished product will be placed on the window sill of my garage window where it will get plenty of sunlight.

Next, I decided to use a hanging upside down tomato planter. But... I thought I could make one instead of buying one. I chose an old milk jug to be the sacrifice for this experiment. Using my husbands drill, I made a few drain holes-- one on each side and one on each bottom corner. Then I drilled a hole in the center of the bottom of the jug.

Using a sharp knife, I CAREFULLY (So I wouldn't have a repeat of cutting my thumb off) cut a cross in the bottom. Do a small cross first because you can always make it bigger later if you need. Also cut the rim of the spout off in order to make it easier to fill with soil.

Then, carefully take the tomato plant out of its planter and shake as much of the soil off of the roots as possible (this is easier to do if your plant is dry- mine was wet as you can tell by the messy pictures below).

Insert the roots of the plant up through the cross in the bottom of the jug. You need the cross to be big enough for the stem and roots to fit through but small enough for it too stay put. Shove as much of the stem into the jug as possible.

Now for the hard part! Fill the jug with soil by putting it in the top of the jug (this will be where you water the plant as well). At first some of the soil will fall out of the hole in the bottom of your jug but keep going, soon it will pack in there good enough where it wont come out anymore.

I looped a chain through the handle and hung it from a hook on my front porch.

So... it worked in theory but we'll see if it produces tomatoes! I'll keep you updated!